An Alabama Fox Now Is Guarding the Foreclosure Henhouse

GMAC Mortgage is at the heart of the evolving foreclosure-fraud story. And who has GMAC picked to help "review" its activities in the burgeoning scandal? Why, an Alabama law firm that helped create the mess in the first place.

Birmingham-based Bradley Arant Boult and Cummings, which touts itself as Alabama's largest law firm, is one of three outfits that GMAC has tabbed to conduct an "independent review."

The blog Naked Capitalism, in a post titled "Foxes Now Minding Very Big Henhouse," finds Bradley Arant's involvement to be problematic, noting that the Alabama firm has been GMAC's national counsel on real-estate servicing matters for some time.

Writes Naked Capitalism:

Given Bradley Arant’s long-standing and extensive involvement in GMAC’s mortgage business, how can it legitimately be part of the team conducting the review? It’s incentives will be to minimize any problems, for a host of reasons, the most important being so as not to ruffle a big meal ticket and to avoid the exposure of any issues that might create liability for the firm.

We've written several times about Bradley Arant, and it has never been in a positive light. That's because the firm seems to be about as "pro business" and "right wing" as you can get--and it seems to have little interest in fundamental matters of justice, or the rights of regular folks. It's main interest seems to be cold, hard cash.

Consider Rob Campbell, a partner at Bradley Arant who happens to be Governor Bob Riley's son-in-law. Campbell and other Riley allies have helped the firm rake in huge sums of state dollars over the past eight years.

More recently, we've written about Ted Rollins, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, who was the beneficiary of numerous extraordinary--not to mention unlawful--rulings in a divorce case in Shelby County, Alabama. Rollins is based in Charlotte, NC, but he has ties to Alabama, mainly because his real-estate development interests have been represented by . . . Bradley Arant. Two of the firm's lawyers, Dawn Helms Sharff and Walter Sears, have been particularly involved with Rollins' activities, including a recent $380-million Wall Street IPO for his firm, Campus Crest Communities.

We will be writing much more about Ted Rollins and his ties to Bradley Arant. And we will be keeping an eye on the firm's involvement with GMAC Mortgage and the foreclosure-fraud story.

We've seen no sign that the esteemed lawyers of Bradley Arant are remotely interested in matters of truth and justice. The chances of such lawyers actually getting to the bottom of what caused the foreclosure mess are extremely slim. It's much more likely that they will try to help cover it up.