Good morning everybody. We are here at the Legally Spring Servicer Summit for 2025 here in Dallas. We've been talking to some of our panelists and luminaries here from the Legal League, membership and other speakers. Talking to us right now is Steven Hladik of a Colorado Experiment, and also our chair of the legally welcome, Steven. Thank you for having me.

It's great to be here. Absolutely. So, I know you've been kind of all over the place, appropriately at this event. And I just saw you sit down with John Abel from the, Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. Yes. Could you tell us, just some of the the top takeaways, that you've been discussing or that have come out of some of the panels that you've been involved with and other, speaking with them and whatever else you've been talking about here?

Certainly. It's been a it's been a very hectic, busy conference, which is a good thing. And and we are so pleased, at the turnout, so pleased of the people that are here from members, servicers, the lending community. It's great to have everyone here. We truly appreciate that. Topic. You said takeaways. One topic on everyone's mind is, well, what's the future of the Cfpb?

What's the future of federal regulatory actions? And, it's been discussed at multiple panels. And it's a very same consensus that, well, we just don't know is the consensus. Right. But, you know, there's a few takeaways from that that have been clear is that, you know, servicers, law firms, everyone involved in the community stay the course. You know, don't be assuming just because it might not be as an enforcement actions might not be as as moving at the pace as they once were.

They can again in the future. So you have good models, you have good programs in place, good loss mitigation, good consumer protection. Stay the course, keep doing that. The other thing you hear a lot about is that there will be a perceived void from the CFP based. You will see states taking an enhanced role in reviewing things. You'll hear things from state attorneys general getting involved, and I'll get into a little bit about what John Abel had to say at our fireside.

But yeah, you will see a greater role from states. But as John mentioned, the attorneys general are more of an enforcement role, not a regulatory role. So the question is what will state legislatures do? What will states, Department of Banking and even insurance do? You have certain states that are very active in their regulatory sides. And I think, with the current administration in Washington, I think you'll see activity at various state levels.

And the irony of all that is you can end up with 50 different rules regarding foreclosures and loss mitigation and assisting borrowers, 50 different types of consumer protection. And also, if there's an issue, you're now dealing with 50 different states instead of one central bureau. So it might not be as good as it sounds to have a lessened enforcement role from the Cfpb.

The other quality panels, like we open today with, the market update, which you can beat, the people that are on that panel and big shout out to them, because the statistics and the thing they bring really set the stage of this and that you when you see consumer debt at $18 trillion now all time highs, when you see auto loan defaults, when you see the fact that, people are being stretched right now on their monthly mortgage payments, they could afford it when they got into the house.

But when you have issues now with insurance and taxes going up, at that rate, you can see the stress points and you can see people are very close. There's a few dominoes from falling to really start triggering some things. So the economic update was good, followed by an outstanding litigation panel. Yeah, I really appreciate the people that participated on that, which really highlighted some of the issues in judicial states where we're starting to see.

So you start to see issues percolate. They haven't reached appellate levels, but they're good to be aware of. When you're dealing with things along the lines of a consumer protection, you'd have things along standing. That's always a foreclosure issue. Things along the lines of, you know, interest rates, fees, charges to borrowers. Those are all critical things that have to be closely reviewed right now.

And then you mentioned, the fireside chat we had right after lunch, very, very thankful for John Neighborhood, chief deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania for coming in. And he's the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. So that is the agency in Pennsylvania that deals with the consumer complaints regarding mortgage servicing. And he did an outstanding job of talking about the overview of how the AG starts a mediation process to try and work things out for consumers, how can expand into an investigation what their subpoena powers are, what their enforcement powers are, and ultimately, how they can work with other states and share information and do multi-state investigations and multi-state cases.

So a lot of sound advice for servicers and law firms about, you know, what they need to do and how to respond if you get an inquiry. And worst thing you can do is not respond. So a lot of good information along that line. And they also gave some highlights of things that are coming down the pike and things to be aware of.

Cyber security is a big issue. Protection of borrower privacy. They're all looking at those kinds of things. And he mentioned how Pennsylvania joined, many other states in September. Now with a mandatory, reporting requirement for data breaches. You have a very short time of period. You have to notify the attorney general's office now. So it's something clients really need to be aware of.

Well, I know you've been talking about the the states potentially stepping up with their own versions of the Cfpb for several years now when I've been talking to you, obviously, that might be more pressing now, too. You're saying I sound like a broken record of ten years. I'm saying you're prescient. Maybe. Hey, is that something that you've you've already seen any movements in recent months that you maybe hadn't before?

Is that are you seeing the developing on that front? Really good question. Pennsylvania was the first state to create what's called a mini Cfpb. Other states have done that. The Pennsylvania mini Cfpb is headed by a prior enforcement attorney from the Cfpb. They brought a very significant, enforcement action in the federal district court, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

I think it was brought about almost about two years ago at this point. But it's a very key case and one to watch because it's state attorneys general, using their powers, but to enforce Dodd-Frank. And that's something that has been legislated to the Cfpb. And the trial court judge there upheld the right of the state AGS to enforce those Dodd-Frank provisions.

Well, I know you've been serving as our terribly GLE, and you've been involved in Legal league for some years before that. I know you said you don't like to brag about yourself, but we can extend this beyond to anybody who's involved with the league. Is there any victories that you want to sort of, speak to any, any high points from your time there of things you've been proud of, that the league league's been able to accomplish a lot of a lot of things.

Very proud of that. The league is done. And I just seeing the growth and the things, you know, I had I had the fortune or misfortune basically of becoming, chair during Covid. Right. So you couldn't care much lower than the low point when I came in. Right. And, firms were stressed and it was very difficult for, you know, any kind of organization to live virtual being.

And, and the league lived on and is prospered. So I mean, we've seen growth in membership. We've seen our webinar committee just take off with very excellent cutting edge topics that are, very, very well attended by the servicing community. So the webinars we've created, the education committee and certification courses, the number of courses being offered right now is fantastic.

The number of participants from the servicing community coming to these courses just continues to grow. We're expanding it now into virtual trainings. We're expanding it on to being able to go on to a service or site to conduct training for older staff. So that area is grown. Well, the Strategic Initiatives Working Group has continued to just turn out excellent, white papers on legal issues that are important to the industry, like one of the most recent ones being on natural disasters, you know, natural disasters.

It's something that is an increasing every year. There are more and it's more damaging and we have to deal with the fallout of the insurance issues, the tax issues, the rebuilding issues and insurance claims. There's so much that comes with it on the, on the mortgage side of things. So dealing with that, we've had a growth in membership.

We've had excellent conferences. You know, I'm just so happy with the turnout today at the Spring summit. And, so, yes, the league's been doing very well. We've, we've, you know, I always set the bar high in our goals to be the go to trade industry organization for the mortgage servicing industry. And we're trying to do that through networking education opportunities, advocating.

We participated in and commenting on proposed federal regulations. We participated in, an amicus briefs on appellate issues of importance to the community. We've seen membership grow. We're encouraging members to get more involved because the more involved you are, the more you get out of it. I have gotten far more out of it than I put into it, and I really, truly appreciate the colleagues and the friends and just the, people I've gotten to know in the industry through it.

So it's been a fantastic experience and it's definitely going in the right direction. Well, well, last question on on the topic of of moving in the right direction. I know you guys have regular webinars scheduled. We've had some great topics recently. We've got five star conference scheduled in September. Is there anything else that's on the radar for the league that you really want to point to?

I would just point to the education topics coming up. And again, the webinars, you know what, we kind of go into a summer lull and then we'll pick up in September again at the five star with some events and then, continuing our education events. And while it's over, that's slow time in the summer. We'll also we're going to be monitoring what's going on on a federal level.

And if there's key changes or key proposals, we're going to we want to be on the forefront of letting the industry know about what's happening. So if we need to advocate, if we need to put things together, you know, to help the industry in different aspects, we will absolutely. Well, I want to thank you for your time, Steve.

I also want to give you a chance if you'd like to plug your podcast, as I know that's the thing. I appreciate that, I appreciate that I am the co-host, along with Kent McPhail from McPhail. Sanchez, based in Alabama, where the co-host of the what the M podcast. And it's been a fantastic experience. We've had a great time, a lot of great guests.

I learned something from every guest on the show and just all aspects, not just of the mortgage industry, but just things in their personal lives, their interests, their things that they've been involved with. Some of the stories have been incredibly inspiring. So it's just been a joy to be part of that podcast. Tune it in. What, the M podcast?

Absolutely. I can't recommend it high enough. It's a it's a great lesson. So thank you for your time today, Steve, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the Legal League Summit. Thanks for having me.