© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden – (July 7) – Stephen Porter told his partners at Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engel last fall that he planned to retire at the end of the year after 23 years at the Addison-based law firm.
On Jan. 6, Mortgage Contracting Services convinced Porter to join the Plano-based real estate services company as its first general counsel.
A 1973 graduate of SMU Dedman School of Law, Porter is a highly respected mortgage industry litigator who represented numerous financial institutions, including Wells Fargo.
“Steve has 23 years of experience working in the mortgage servicing industry, and we have no doubt that he is the perfect person to take the helm of MCS’s legal department,” says MCS CEO Caroline Reaves. “The mortgage servicing industry is facing an unprecedented regulatory environment, and Steve is more than up to the task of guiding us during this interesting time.”
Porter says that he had every intention of retiring but that when he received a call from Reaves, whom he has known for many years, including when she was an executive at Midland Mortgage, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
“I know Carolyn and several members of the executive team, so I knew it would be a comfortable place for me,” he says. “Because of my prior practice, I have a solid knowledge of the industry and I know a lot of MCS’s clients because I worked with them at the law firm.”
Porter, who received a business degree from Baylor University, handles all of MCS’s legal and regulatory issues, including dealing with day-to-day matters involving property preservation in all 50 states and oversight of training a network of vendors.
“At the law firm, I had 20 lawyers reporting to me, but now it is just me and that’s been taking some time to get used to,” says Porter, who served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army from 1968-1971, including service during the Vietnam conflict.
Banks and mortgage servicers across the country hire MCS to perform property inspections, property preservation and real estate owned (REO) property maintenance services.
“This is a highly regulated industry and we are under a lot of scrutiny stemming from the 2008 financial crisis,” he says. “There’s a lot of litigation within the mortgage industry and that has flowed downhill to MCS.”
Porter, who is a member of the American Legal & Financial Network and the Mortgage Bankers Association, says that he is currently working with about two-dozen different outside counsel across the country on various litigation and regulatory matters. Dallas-based Thompson Coe is MCS’s primary outside counsel on most Texas matters.
Like many general counsel, Porter is interested in expanding his list of law firms, but has specific needs and is concerned about costs.
“We need law firms that have experience litigating real estate and mortgage services matters,” he says. “I’m looking for lawyers who can get the job done at a fair rate.”
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