Andrea Lee Negroni, Esq.

West Key Authors Interview with Andrea Lee Negroni, Esq.
By Lisa Kless, Senior Attorney-Editor

A: "In 1985, I started work as a lawyer for a national mortgage lender owned by The Prudential Insurance Company; the company was called Prudential Home Mortgage. The executives wanted to know the mortgage lending and servicing rules for every state because the company made loans all over the country. This required extensive research by me (a one-lawyer legal department); eventually, lawyers from all over the country were calling and asking me directly for this kind of information. I sensed a need for comparative legal information about the mortgage industry, so I drafted a proposal to write on this topic and sent it to seven legal publishers. I got offers from four of the publishers and signed a contract with Clark Boardman Callaghan (later acquired by West).

"Residential mortgage lending had previously been dominated by local lenders, and the big national companies were just emerging as I was working on state-by-state regulatory comparison. Clark Boardman Callaghan published the first volume of Residential Mortgage Lending: State Regulation Manual in 1989. The last of the six volumes was released in 1990. Since then, the six volumes have become 12. This book was the first reference work with the laws of all 50 states on residential mortgage lending, so sales were strong from the start. Writing helped build my career in mortgage banking regulation and allowed me to develop a clientele in my law practice. Eventually, I came to represent many of the leading residential mortgage lenders."

A: "I have been a feminist since my freshman year in college. After I graduated from Columbia Law School, I wanted to encourage students to write about gender and law issues. The Negroni Prize was a money award given to the winner of a writing competition; the winning articles were published in Columbia's law journals. I donated the prize money annually, and the award ran from 1985 until 2000."

A: "Based on some work for my real estate law class at Columbia, I wrote an article about a legal movement to temporarily prevent conversion of apartment buildings to condominiums. I sent it to Clark Boardman Callaghan, and it was published in the Journal of Current Municipal Problems. I later realized that having a published article was a useful way to demonstrate legal skills. I established the Negroni Prize to encourage students to give their thoughts a longer life, which would be helpful to their careers. I was also hoping that 'gender and law' issues would be taken more seriously if they were the focus of articles in prestigious law journals."

A: "I sometimes work on vacation. I have coauthors. I use law students for some of the preliminary research, and I have signed up for e-mail alerts of the state mortgage regulatory agencies. The Westlaw KeyCite program is also very helpful in bringing legal changes to my attention on a periodic basis."

A: "I have two coauthors for Residential Mortgage Lending: State Regulation Manual. John Kromer, a partner at Buckley Kolar, has been working on mortgage regulatory issues for his entire legal career. Mary Pfaff, a paralegal for 25 years, is the Director of State Government Relations for Freddie Mac. I have worked with both of them for about 15 years, so we know what it takes to make the team work and meet our deadlines. It takes all three of us to keep the books current-the volume of relevant material is too much for one person, and all of us have full-time jobs in addition to being authors. We use law students to help summarize cases and have been experimenting with outsourcing case summaries to India (using LPO companies)."

A: "I go to a lot of meetings and meet people who subscribe to my books. They ask me questions and send me e-mails about topics of interest they would like to have clarified. Westlaw Customer Service also contacts me asking for more information when customers call.

"In addition to West, I write for other publishers, including A.S. Pratt, which publishes my book Pratt's State Regulation of Second Mortgages and Home Equity Loans and the Pratt's Mortgage Compliance Newsletter, of which I am editor-in-chief. I also use Barron's and Berenson's book, Federal Regulation of Real Estate (Thomson/RIA). Like me, Barron graduated from Columbia Law School. I consult state banking department Web sites and refer to the Monthly Mortgage Compliance Letter, a newsletter written by my coauthor Mary Pfaff. In addition, I utilize services provided by Westlaw, such as KeyCite Alerts."

A: "I have had wonderful editors at West. My editors never fail to remind me of deadlines, and they make sure I meet them. They use their own judgment and avoid asking me about simple changes that they could easily make on their own. They call or e-mail me about issues that need my attention, such as images that do not match the section titles. It helps me to manage valuable time when the editors use good judgment and common sense. I have a great deal of confidence in the editorial group at West, because knowing that they are lawyers lets me trust them to get it right."

A: "Aggressiveness and follow-through are essential. In the last 20 years, I have written about 50 published articles in addition to my books. I sent unsolicited articles to law journals and professional publications in the mortgage area. I called the editors of magazines and journals to build personal relationships with them and learn what they were looking for. Luckily for me, many of my articles were published and I became known as an expert on the subject of mortgage regulation. Mortgage companies were able to find me through these articles and contacted me about legal work. The book helped me develop clients, and my clients and others became subscribers to the book.

"For authors with a private practice, it is essential to prioritize the work and to multi-task. Updating my titles helps me advise my clients, and vice versa. Almost everything I learn has multiple uses; the key is to use the information efficiently the first time you become aware of it so you are not revisiting the information repeatedly. With 50 states to keep up with, you have to be able to work on several things at once. When I am looking at cases or new or amended regulations, I make notes on index cards and file them in a system for the next update. My titles are updated half a dozen times a year, so prioritizing is essential.

"I'm also a really fast typist!"

A: "Yes. Aggressiveness and creativity in marketing yourself and your titles, writing well, prioritizing, multitasking, and staying organized are still the most important factors. Of course, it goes without saying that you must identify subject matter that the market is interested in and write about it in an original and engaging manner."

A: "Technology changed everything. The use of the Internet and computers has made legal research more complex because of the volume of information available. While it is easier to find data, research has become more time consuming because there is so much more material to digest. I'd guess that the amount of relevant data that has become available since I began to write Residential Mortgage Lending has increased ten-fold. This tracks the increase in the volume of mortgage loans since I started writing-in 1999 there were a trillion dollars in residential mortgage loans outstanding. In 2006, it was over $10 trillion. The amount of regulatory guidance (formal and informal) and the number of cases have also exploded.

"In addition to the proliferation of technology and information, new topics have emerged that were not covered in the earlier versions of the work. An example is predatory lending. It's a hot topic right now, but 10 years ago, no one talked about it. Now nearly every state has some sort of law on the subject, and the details are mind-boggling."

A: "My husband Hugo is very supportive of my writing and has often excused my absences when editorial deadlines are pending. He's been very forgiving over the years. "When I was a child, television was severely restricted in our house and allowed only on special occasions after our homework and chores were done. My siblings and I turned to books and other forms of entertainment. I grew up reading instead of watching TV, and that habit is still with me.

"My family understood the power of the written word. My grandfather, Sam Foosaner, was a tax attorney in New Jersey. In 1960, he published a book on federal taxation with Callaghan. He encouraged my legal career and suggested I use writing to build a clientele. My mother used to enter jingle contests, the kinds that were published on the back of cereal boxes and in women's magazines. She frequently won. My sister, Christine Negroni, is also an author. Her book, Deadly Departure, about the explosion of TWA flight 800, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. I did some of the preliminary editing for her."

A: "Try to stick to a limited subject matter that you know well so you can maximize the output from your energy input. My published work focuses on mortgage lending, and what I learn as an author advances my clients' interests and makes me a better practitioner. The reverse is also true. I think it would be extremely hard to balance authorship and a private practice while writing about one area and practicing in another, such as a patent lawyer writing about divorce or family law."

A: "Learn everything you can about the topic and be proactive about being ahead of the game. Write in simple terms using the active voice. Include all necessary citations to help your readers find the work in electronic formats (such as Westlaw).

"Market your work vigorously. When I started, I would send West's product catalogs to clients with a tape flag on the page where "my" books appeared. When the books were first released, I sent pizzas to the West telemarketing group's office on Fridays, with the book flyers attached to the boxes so they would remember me and mention my books on their sales calls. I distributed the product flyers along with my professional cards at meetings and conferences. I learned to be a salesperson for my books."

A: "The biggest challenge for me is meeting client demands in this time of rapid change in the mortgage banking industry. It can be hard to meet publishing deadlines while responding to the day-to-day needs of clients. Author royalties are a small fraction of professional fees, and this can be a conflict if you have to take time away from your practice to update your books. Fortunately for me, I've worked with several law firms that have a tremendous appreciation for having an attorney-author in the firm."

A: "Technology has been a blessing and a bane. It makes legal research more complex because much more information is available. But, what information is available can be found much more quickly today than 20 years ago and updating can be done 'on the go' with a wireless laptop. I used to sit in a library all day, and I rarely do that now. Letters have been replaced by e-mails, and photocopying and mailing tasks have been replaced by scanning and PDF files, so I work faster today, but I have to know more than I used to."

"I never anticipated becoming a mortgage lawyer, but it is a great industry to represent--mortgage lenders enable ordinary people to own homes, build wealth, and even retire on home equity. The American mortgage system is not customary in the rest of the world. Home ownership is a good method for wealth-building and community development. The huge menu of mortgage products in the market today results from the creativity of mortgage bankers, but regulatory compliance is an essential element of a healthy mortgage market. To ensure that the lending process is fair and that fraud and losses are kept low, a lot of rules must be followed precisely. At this moment, some would say (based on the current mortgage 'crisis' with subprime loans) that the industry's creativity has gotten out of hand and regulatory compliance has been overlooked. Stricter regulatory focus will be good for the public and the industry and, ironically should help with sales of my books!"

"Even though I did not plan on a legal career in mortgage banking compliance, I am proud to represent an industry that helps people build wealth and stability for their families. I hope it is not immodest to say that my books have contributed in some small way to advancing the industry's (and government's) knowledge of the rules of the road where residential mortgages are concerned."

A: "The growth of the Internet, technology, e-filing, electronic research, and ever-increasing access to an already vast amount of legal information. In addition, clients want answers immediately. They want to be able to reach you 24/7. There are more lawyers now than ever before, so the competition for clients is keener than it was 10 years ago. Fees are sky-high because (in part) young lawyers are paid nearly $200,000 a year almost from the start. Clients paying high fees have a right to be demanding. However, working in a demanding atmosphere is not particularly relaxing. In the last 10 years, the profession has become more stressful."

A: "In the next 10 years, I anticipate outsourcing of some legal tasks to places like India and the Philippines. English-speaking lawyers in these countries can do some legal tasks at a fraction of the price of their American counterparts. Basic research and deposition digesting can be done abroad by lawyers trained in these tasks. In big-ticket litigation, 60-90% of the legal costs may be in document review. Legal process outsourcing vendors can review documents at far lower costs. A good salary for an Indian lawyer is about $5,000 a year. Lawyers sell legal knowledge, and clients are increasingly unwilling to pay legal fees for clerical and paralegal-type services. I predict more emphasis on differentiating the practice of law from activities that are really administrative support. The latter will probably move out of U.S. law firms to LPO providers."

Negroni is the coauthor of
Residential Mortgage Lending: Brokers

and
Residential Mortgage Lending: State Regulation Manuals