..."If fraud is your litigation tactic, the supreme court is basically saying you can go ahead and do that," said Amanda Lundergan, a lawyer for Ice Legal.

Royal Palm Beach-based defense attorney Tom Ice, who tangled with Fidelity to retrieve a client’s deed, said he thinks it will be hard [for Fidelity] to recover from such sternly worded judicial decisions.

“Faced with this scathing order from a federal judge,” Ice said, “I would definitely have second thoughts about moving forward.”

Ice Legal attorneys, along with members of a local legal defense group changed the course of events for pro se homeowners in Manatee.  With the assistance of Gulfcoast Legal Services, Ice Legal led the way in volunteering legal services for homeowners who appeared for foreclosure trials without representation by an attorney.

...“What is groundbreaking about the plea agreement is that it holds Mr. Watson accountable, not for doing these things himself, but for failing to supervise and train his associates and control firm policies so that others didn’t do these things,” said Royal Palm Beach-based foreclosure defense attorney Tom Ice. “It acknowledges that many of the practices we have been complaining about were actually taking place.” ...