Lawyers are working to learn how to stop and defend foreclosures before it gets too late. In a special workshop on defending residential foreclosures, a leading consumer lawyer says Florida is now one of the top ten states most affected by foreclosures.

With nearly 8 million people unemployed across the country, she is not surprised that the number of foreclosures is staggering.

Rhonda Stroman is in her fifth year of practice. She says she has personally dealt with nearly 15 foreclosure cases since the beginning of her legal career. Stroman says the number of foreclosures in Alachua County is up by 50 percent in the past year. These statistics are nothing new for the attorney. They've been happening for years.

"It may seem like such a big shock to middle and upper class people but for a  number of years people in Alachua County have been struggling with this issue. Unfortunately its getting the attention because it is so wide spread," says Ms. Stroman.

Ms. Stroman says that this problem is affecting everone, from low income mobile home owners to millionaire country club residents. But there are ways to prevent foreclosure. April Charney says that most borrowers who find themselves being foreclosed upon don't have lawyers to represent them. This is why Charney is traveling across the country to teach litigators.

"Bottom line, foreclosure is a process of debt collection and what we find in these cases is that the entities or plaintiffs that come into foreclosure don't own these loans and don't have a right to file foreclosure or to throw people out of their homes," says Charney.

This class was sponsored by the 8th Judicial Circuit Bar Association and the Florida Bar Foundation.

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