Founder
John Anthony Van Ness is the founder of the Firm. He graduated from the State University of New York at Albany (NY) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He received his Juris Doctor from Albany Law School (NY) at Union University in 1997.
Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Van Ness began his career in the area of default servicing with the Foreclosure and REO departments of Ocwen Federal Bank, FSB (West Palm Beach, FL). Thereafter, he would establish the REO Closing and Eviction departments of Interbay Funding, LLC ** (Miami, FL) before leaving to practice foreclosure law and litigation at the firms of Rutherford, Mulhall & Wargo, PA and Vargas, Zion & Kahane, PA.
Mr. Van Ness represents national mortgage lenders, servicers and financial institutions throughout Florida. The Firm handles both residential and commercial foreclosures and related litigation. Mr. Van Ness and the Firm have been the appellate counsel of record on several decisions that help shape foreclosure case law in Florida. He has also practiced in the areas of Commercial Litigation, Creditor-Side Bankruptcy, Contracts and Sports Management. He supervises all matters of Firm representation.
Firm Honors and Representation
In November 2010, the Firm took great pride in becoming “retained counsel” for the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”). At the time, the default industry was going through extreme scrutiny and change initiated by the Florida Supreme Court, US Department of Justice and other regulatory bodies. Only a few large firms were previously retained counsel and Fannie Mae looked to retaining smaller, diverse firms to take on transfers from the large firms that eventually failed. The Firm is still eligible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (“GSEs”) cases but the GSEs no longer dictate which firms must receive new matters.
In January 2017, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC (“Ocwen”) awarded Van Ness Law Firm the Best Performing Firm in their network for the 2016 calendar year. This feat was repeated at the 2019 Summit for the 2018 calendar year performance. This award represents all the firms representing Ocwen nationwide in both judicial and non-judicial. The law firms are measured on their efficiency moving cases to resolution as well as attention to detail and consistency. The Firm has been the top performing firm in Florida approximately 55 of the last 60 months but is always a nice surprise and honor to win nationally. The two awards are displayed in photo below.
The Firm represents national clients in the state of Florida to include PHH Mortgage/Ocwen Loan Servicing; Carrington Mortgage Services; Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC; and Third Federal Savings and Loan as primary source referrals. The Firm has represented these clients for a decade or more as well as other clients.
Organizations, Leadership and Philanthropy
The Firm is also a member of two default servicing industry trade groups being the Legal League 100 (“LL100”) and the American Legal & Financial Network (“ALFN”). For LL100, Mr. Van Ness has served as Member of the Advisory Board for many years and is part of the Special Initiatives Work Group. He has been an active speaker and moderator serving on many panels.
Van Ness Law Firm is a certified minority owned law firm (African-American) through the Florida State Minority Supplier Development Council.
Mr. Van Ness is a Director on the Board for the Broward County Bar Association and serves on the Membership Committee. The Broward County Bar is the largest in the state. Mr. Van Ness is also a member of the TJ Reddick Bar Association being the black bar association for Broward County, Florida.
Mr. Van Ness is involved with different philanthropic causes, however, his primary focus is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County serving on both the Deerfield Beach Unit Board as well as Chairman of the Dunn’s Run Committee. He feels providing educational and nutritional support along with a safe environment for children to study and play in underserved communities is the most important thing he can do.
Firm Efficiency
The Firm not only has the best trial attorneys in the default industry, our key to success is performance as it relates to compliance, accountability and timelines. The case management system (“CMS”) is the central nervous system of the law firm. From CMS, we merge all our legal documentation, track cases, run reports, calendar hearings and deadlines as well as queue employee tasks. The law firm is paperless and the use of internal emails between staff is technically obsolete as we have internal accountability through queues and reports. The information technology staff not only keep our servers and work stations operative, they are also responsible for working to update our templates, queries and reports to reflect the evolving mandates and requirements from the courts and clients. The firm has experienced minimal turnover of key staff and has maintained a core that have been with the law firm for several years dating back to our Hollywood office. The firm has zero debt as it owns the copiers, computers, furniture and the principal owns the office locations.
The Firm does not have layers of management that it feels can limit individual growth, performance and accountability. The senior executives and attorneys all actively participate in the law firm to include loan level. The staff to include attorneys are cross-trained on multiple facets of firm operation to include the usage of court filing systems, client management systems and different departmental assignments. Given the ebb and flow of the foreclosure business with the addition of moratoriums for hurricanes and pandemics, it is important we have a large reserve, limited costs and staff that can transition to other areas of need.
Summary:
The law firm has 17 years of experience handling Florida foreclosure cases and related work for servicers and lenders. The Firm feels the balance of default loan servicing and vendor-attorney side experience aid in our ability to assist clients to making the best possible decisions from both a business and legal perspective.
The Firm appreciates any opportunity to work with clients to make sure the Firm exceeds their performance goals and expectations. The firm offers free training to clients, newsletters and any other service outside of the handling of specific cases a client requires. An informed client makes the Firm better and cases handled more efficiently. We attach some performance reports to better understand what is expected from a firm.
For more information, you contact Mr. Van Ness directly at tvanness@vanlawfl.com or reach him at office (954)571-2031 ext. 222 or mobile (561)715-8510.
