Kamala Harris

Your view of Attorney General Kamala Harris likely depends on which side of the political landscape you fall. Love her or hate her, Harris is exactly the type of lawyer we seek to honor in this issue. She's a doer. Lawyers who have impact on an industry or on the larger society are whom we seek to honor. They get results by the sheer force of their intellect and skill and sometimes just by sheer force.

Unsurprisingly, Harris' tenure in office has been largely devoted to holding financial institutions responsible for mortgage crisis that brought on the 2008 recession. In 2014, working with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Harris brought more financial institutions to heel.

In August, Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $17 billion to settle mortgage fraud claims against its subsidiaries Countrywide Financial Corp. and Merrill Lynch. With $800 million going to California, it's the largest civil settlement in U.S. history with a single entity.

"Bank of America profited by misleading investors about the risky nature of the mortgage-backed securities it sold," Harris said in a statement. "This settlement makes our pension funds whole for the financial losses caused by these misrepresentations and brings help to hard-pressed homeowners and communities in California."

And JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to give California public employees and teachers in CalSTRS and CalPERS $300 million to settle claims it misrepresented residential mortgage-backed securities. Citigroup Inc. also agreed to pay CalSTRS and CalPERS enrollees $102 million to restore pension funds in a federal multistate settlement with an additional $90 million going to California consumers. Homeowners who trusted Ocwen Financial Corp. are also eligible to get almost $300 million of a $2.1 billion multistate settlement for the corporation's mortgage service misconduct. Another federal multistate settlement resulted in $550 million from SunTrust Mortgage Inc. in June with over 4,700 Californians eligible for damages.

Major banks settling to give more than $2 billion to California fueled Harris' determination to get justice for bamboozled homeowners.

"We are recovering from the foreclosure crisis in California, but for too many families the legacy created by this crisis has been an enduring struggle to stay in their homes," she said in announcing the SunTrust settlement.

Once Harris took office in 2011, she was already creating programs and supporting legislation to help homeowners impacted by the foreclosure crisis. She created the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force in 2011 to investigate and prosecute misconduct at all stages of the mortgage process. This year, Harris announced 12 arrests for individuals allegedly defrauding more than 1,500 homeowners in loan modification services and illegal home seizures throughout the state.

"These individuals profited from the fear and desperation of hardworking Californians who were simply fighting to keep their homes during the height of our state's foreclosure crisis," she said last February after the arrest of seven suspects in a mortgage fraud scheme in Inland Valley. "This kind of predatory activity is reprehensible."

In 2012, she represented California in one of the first major nationwide foreclosure settlements, making Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial agree to reduce loans for 1 million homeowners around the U.S. and give each Californian who was unfairly foreclosed on up to $2,000, resulting in $18 billion for the state. She also sponsored the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, which took effect in 2013, to restrict dual-track foreclosures, guarantee a clear point of contact for homeowners and lenders, and impose civil penalties on fraudulently signed mortgage documents.

Harris is now focusing on her campaign for re-election in November.

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