Beth K. Findsen

 

Lawyer Lisbeth Findsen | Featured Attorney Foreclosure

Lisbeth (Beth) Knickerbocker Neese Findsen, Attorney

Beth Findsen has been a civil litigator for 26 years, first in Houston, Texas, then in Arizona. For the past fifteen years, Ms. Findsen has focused her practice on representing consumers and homeowners, in defending foreclosure, fighting abusive debt collection, fighting consumer fraud, and practicing real estate litigation and appeal.

Ms. Findsen became a member of the Texas Bar in 1997, and a member of the Arizona Bar in 2004.  In her first year of practice at Baker Botts, LLP in Houston, Texas in 1997, she second-chaired and litigated one case to jury verdict, with successful results for the client.  Her trial practice has encompassed  a broad array of business litigation matters including employment law; business torts; class actions; construction disputes; contract disputes; fiduciary disputes; officer and director liability; oil & gas matters; partnership cases;  real estate disputes; and securities fraud. In her early experience at large defense firm, her practice included representing large publicly-traded oil companies, national sports teams, municipalities, and large national hotel chains.   In her tenure at Cunningham, Darlow, Ms. Findsen assisted in the six-month trial of a famous probate case, one of a bundle of related cases that ultimately resulted in the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Stern v. Marshall, elucidating the jurisdiction of Bankruptcy Judges vs. Article III judges to decide matters of state law that are subsumed into bankruptcy cases.

In the last fifteen years, however, Ms. Findsen has devoted her practice to advocating for consumers and plaintiffs.  In 2008, Ms. Findsen began to represent Arizona homeowners defending against wrongful foreclosures, abusive loan modifications, loan servicing fraud and negligence, and consumer fraud.  Since then, Ms. Findsen has consistently fought for consumers, filing cases under consumer statutes such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act, and state unfair business practices statutes such as Arizona Consumer Fraud Act and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act to deter and redress credit reporting abuses, and to advocate against predatory debt collection of her clients.  Ms. Findsen has pursued cases on behalf of plaintiff consumers in Arizona, Texas, and federal district courts nationwide, including N.D. Texas, E.D. Texas, S.D. Texas, W.D. Texas, D. Ariz., C.D. Cal., ND Ill., D. Minn., N.D. Georgia, D. Kentucky, and in state and federal courts of appeal such as the Arizona Court of Appeals Division II, the Arizona Supreme Court, and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In 2018, Ms. Findsen and her National Association of Consumer Advocates colleague Veronika Fabian fought abusive credit card collection by prevailing in an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court in Mertola v Santos, 244 Ariz. 488, 422, P.3d 1028 (Ariz. 2018) in which the Court adopted the bright line rule urged by the consumer defendant in a credit card collection action, that the accrual of a cause of action for the six-year statute of limitations to begin to run on open-ended credit when the borrower defaults on a payment, not when the creditor decides to accelerate.

To hold that a cause of action on the debt
does not accrue until the creditor exercises his right to
accelerate would vest the creditor with unilateral power
to extend the statutory limitation period and permit
interest to continue to accrue, long after it is clear that
no further payments will be made, subject only to a
standard of reasonableness and other equitable
doctrines. This would functionally eliminate the
protection provided to defendants by the statute of
limitations. We decline to extend such power to the creditor.

Mertola, 422 P.3d at 1032.

Ms. Findsen has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal courts before judges and juries.  Ms. Findsen has practiced before federal district courts in Texas and Arizona, the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,  the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the National Labor Relations Board, Arbitration Panels for securities arbitration, and Texas state courts; Arizona federal district courts, Arizona state courts.

Ms. Findsen graduated magna cum laude, ranked fourth in her graduating class of 168 students, and the top-ranked female graduate, from the University of Houston College of Law, a top-tier law school per the U.S. News & World Report Law School rankings in 1997, where she served as Articles Editor for the Houston Law Review, and was a member of the Order of the Coif and Order of the Barons.  In 1991, Ms. Findsen received her Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

She received numerous awards including the Corpus Juris Secundum (formerly the AmJur)  awards for the top grade in Torts, Contracts, Criminal Procedure, and Civil Procedure.  She received the Susman Godfrey Award for Best Litigation Paper.  She worked with Texas appellate judge (since retired) of the Texas Court of Appeals-Div. 1-Houston on a special project resulting in a legislative change regarding the availability of interlocutory appeal of the denial of a special appearance by a non-resident defendant in Texas.

• Attorney, Consumer Attorneys, PLLC, Scottsdale, Arizona (March 2023-Present)
• Attorney, Real Estate Litigation, Consumer Litigation, Fraud Litigation Beth K. Findsen, PLLC, Scottsdale, Arizona (2004-Present)

Past

• Attorney, Price Law Group APC, Scottsdale, Arizona (2018-2022)
• Attorney, Litigation,  Cunningham, Darlow, Zook & Chapoton LLP, litigation boutique spin-off from Fulbright & Jaworski, Houston, Texas (2000-2002)
• Attorney, Litigation, Baker Botts LLP, Houston, Texas (1997-2000)

• Summer Associate Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP, Litigation 1996
• Summer Associate Baker Botts, LLP, Trial Section 1996
• Summer Associate,  Litigation, Real Estate, Corporate, Mayor Day Caldwell and Keeton, LLP 1995, 1996
• Admitted to State Bar of Texas 1997
• Admitted to State Bar of Arizona 2004
• Admitted to practice in the Eastern, Southern, and Western District of Texas in 1998
• Admitted to practice in the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001
• Admitted to practice in the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 2009
• Admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court Arizona 2009
• University of Texas, B.S. in Communications, 1991
• University of Houston Law Center, magna cum laude, 1997, ranked 4th in graduating class
• Texas Real Estate License 1992-1995
• Texas House of Representatives Page during undergraduate 1988-1989
• Public Relations intern, KXAN Channel 36, NBC affiliate, Austin, Texas 1991.

Publications and Speeches:

• Participant in consumer law forum, 2018, 2019, 2022, Let Joe Know Reporter Joe Ducey, Joe on the Road, Consumer Forum, ABC15, Annual Event, Tempe Marketplace
• Attorney Panel and Speaker, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Homeowner Advocacy Training and CLE, “Addressing Common Problems That Arise During Modification Process” (July 26, 2013)
• ABC 15, Interview with investigative reporter, Dave Biscobing, “Arizona homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure through forged documents”
  Read more: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/arizona-homeowners-losing-their-homes-to-foreclosure-through-forged-documents#ixzz2alIFqEFo
• Attorney Panel and Speaker, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, National Mortgage Settlement Seminar (October 19, 2012) http://online.law.asu.edu/Events/2012/National_Settlement/index3.htm
• Interview and appearance in Bailout, documentary released 2012 and screened at various film festivals
• Oral Argument before Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Buchna v. Bank of America June 16, 2012
• Author, Amicus Curiae Brief, Arizona Supreme Court, CV-11-0115-PR    Hogan v. Washington Mutual Bank, 2012-01-17 Amicus Brief – Foreclosure Strategists
• Author, Amicus Curiae Brief, Arizona Supreme Court, CV-11-  00091, In re Vasquez, Amicus Brief-final Stauffer and Buchna
• Assisted in drafting and obtaining sponsorship of Arizona Senate Bill 1259 in 2010, which passed the Senate 28-2, but was not brought to the House floor for a vote.  It would have required a person to swear to the chain of title leading to the transfers of the beneficial interest in the deed of trust, and the ownership and authority of the beneficiary substituting the trustee and ordering the trustee to exercise the power of sale.
• 2011 Foreclosure Defense Group Seminar, Arizona Law Update
• 2010 Foreclosure Defense Group Seminar, Arizona Law Update
• 1999 Council on Education in Management Personnel Law Update, “What You Can Do Tomorrow to Ensure Your Managers’ Discipline and Termination Practices Aren’t Laying the Groundwork for Liability”
• Beth K. Neese, Comment, Texas in the Wake of Canadian Helicopters: Are Nonresident Defendants’ Due Process Rights Going Down in Flames?, 34 HOUS. L. REV.503, 506 07 (1997) (commenting that the mandamus standard is inconsistent and confusing as applied to nonresident defendants seeking relief for denial of a special appearance).

Organizations and Committees

• National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA)
• Arizona Women Lawyers Association
• State Bar of Arizona
• Scottsdale Bar Association
• American Bar Association
• American Trial Lawyers Association
• State Bar of Texas
• Texas Young Lawyers Association, Litigation Committee
• Delta Delta Delta Sorority University of Texas at Austin Theta Zeta Chapter
• Race for the Cure
• Childhelp

Lawyer Lisbeth Findsen | Featured Attorney Foreclosure