Is it honorable to work for a law office overseeing evictions?

[PaulConventionWV]

Unless you're a liberal who believes people deserve to squat in homes they can't afford to pay for, why not?

Is honorable and bad guy the only two options? Can't just be a guy who works for a living doing what is acceptable?

There is the honorable and there is less honorable. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being evil, 10 being saintly, I would rate this a "meh."

 

[PaulConventionWV]

I would say it is ethical to enforce contracts.

Exactly. All the current laws are in the lease agreements by default. Everyone knows what they're agreeing to.

EDIT: If they don't, it's their fault.

 

[Maximus]

I don't see any ethical quandry unless the firm was unlawfully evicting people. If the landlord hires you, your job would basically be to ensure the process goes as smoothly and quickly as possible. That's an important function.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

I don't see any ethical quandry unless the firm was unlawfully evicting people.

Evicting people isn't high on the list of "feel-good-about-it" jobs. But that's just one of many factors that go into making a decision. As the above post alludes to, you may run into situations that are legally wrong. What do you do when your employer is doing shady things? Got to be prepared for that. On the other hand, you may find that your employer is more than fair and honest. You never know till you try it out.

 

[emazur]

It's pretty simple - If you owned a property and you needed to legally evict someone, wouldn't you be glad there are law offices who would assist you in the process?

Take the job and don't think twice about it. If you notice the law office regularly engages in bad ethics, then you can think twice.

 

[anaconda]

If nothing else, you can learn a lot, and you'll know better about how to defeat the system. People on the inside aren't a bad thing. My son wants to be a cop. I hate the idea of it, but he says he wants to work on the "never fire on citizens" from inside.

If it bugs you, spend your off hours doing volunteer work at legal aid.

Your son shares with Rand Paul the approach of working "on the inside!" I am very pro Rand.

 

[Tpoints]

Definitely. I'm nearing completion of my MBA now. I spent several months researching the various aspects of law school, and though it's not the best thing for me to do financially it's still something I have a passion for.

Cool.

Having a passion definitely makes the cost more worthy and less painful, but it won't go away. If you're still working on a degree, then it's good that you can keep observing until that's done. My personal opinion is this, based on 5 or more years of observation : only guaranteed employment degrees such as medicine, and education can justify $100K. Anything else, including accounting and law (varies by where you live), does not guarantee employment, therefore isn't going to be worth $50K. This is looking solely at job vs tuition, I argue with a person's preference or ambition.

 

[presence]

considering that we have perhaps the most corrupt economic system in the world, would I be working for the "bad guys" if I take a legal staff position with an evictions law office? I went on the interview today, and my wife asked, "Wouldn't you be one of the bad guys?"

Bhagavad Gita Ch 5 V 1-29

http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/chapter-05.html
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gita/bg5.htm

"At one time, O Krishna,
thou praisest the renunciation of action,
and yet again its right performance.
Tell me with certainty which of the two is better."

 

[oyarde]

I can only offer you this , what I would do ..... If I needed the job , I would take it , I already know , I would not like it , so , I would keep looking while I worked.

 

[DapperDan]

Honestly, I say go with your gut. You can always leave (as hard as that may be in these times) if you see something you don't like or it ends up eating you. I can tell you I thought I'd never work for a mortgage company especially after the whole housing debacle, but I have learned A LOT. I used to do eviction management and I can say each story is different, of course those who probably shouldn't have bought a house in the first place and then those that just got shafted by the economy and real life. It sucks sometimes, but you gotta do what you have to do to support yourself. I work in closings now on selling those properties, so it is definitely easier on me. The firm should show no bias and do what is asked based on the contract and state law...if they do it unethically then you should gtfo fast.


To be honest in this day and age, I would fault people for not reading their contracts before making such a huge purchase. Unfortunately people forget reading is fundamental....

 

[thequietkid10]

Consider the alternative. If there was no consequences for not paying rent or not paying mortgage, who would pay either of them? If there was no legal mechanism to deal with squatters then many landlord would resort to force. It would make drug violence look trivial in comparison.

 

[Tpoints]

Consider the alternative. If there was no consequences for not paying rent or not paying mortgage, who would pay either of them? If there was no legal mechanism to deal with squatters then many landlord would resort to force. It would make drug violence look trivial in comparison.

exactly!

Unless the government or the people complaining have a goal of making everybody own no more than one house and make renting illegal.

 

[AceNZ]

Consider the alternative. If there was no consequences for not paying rent or not paying mortgage, who would pay either of them? If there was no legal mechanism to deal with squatters then many landlord would resort to force.

I don't have any problem with enforcing contracts that were voluntarily entered into by two fully informed parties. Contracts are one of the cornerstones of Liberty.

The problem is that many of today's mortgages don't fit that criteria. The mortgages were fraudulently represented to buyers, who the lenders (and/or their broker representatives) knew in advance couldn't afford them. Evicting someone in a case like that would feel to me like working for a loan shark.

OTOH, if the bank was/is honest (yes, there are a few of them left), then it's another story. The thing is, though, that the honest banks actually have relatively few evictions....

 

[Tpoints]

I don't have any problem with enforcing contracts that were voluntarily entered into by two fully informed parties. Contracts are one of the cornerstones of Liberty.

The problem is that many of today's mortgages don't fit that criteria. The mortgages were fraudulently represented to buyers, who the lenders (and/or their broker representatives) knew in advance couldn't afford them. Evicting someone in a case like that would feel to me like working for a loan shark.

OTOH, if the bank was/is honest (yes, there are a few of them left), then it's another story. The thing is, though, that the honest banks actually have relatively few evictions....

But aren't you assuming only the lender knows the buyer can't afford the mortgage? If the buyer knows as well, however stupid and in denial he is, is it still fraud or wrong? Or, is it even more wrong on the buyer's part, as he made a promise he doesn't intend to keep?

 

[thequietkid10]

I don't have any problem with enforcing contracts that were voluntarily entered into by two fully informed parties. Contracts are one of the cornerstones of Liberty.

The problem is that many of today's mortgages don't fit that criteria. The mortgages were fraudulently represented to buyers, who the lenders (and/or their broker representatives) knew in advance couldn't afford them. Evicting someone in a case like that would feel to me like working for a loan shark.

OTOH, if the bank was/is honest (yes, there are a few of them left), then it's another story. The thing is, though, that the honest banks actually have relatively few evictions....

But isn't there a difference between ones interpretation of a mortgage and the actually mortgage? If the mortgage payment is 1,500 a month and it says 1,500 a month in the contract, and the lender says "you can afford this," and you never bother to check your budget, your financial situation, your career stability, and how much flexibility this gives you, then it's still on you. Regardless of what sales pitch the lender gave you. His job is to sell you a product, not give financial advice.