DS News

78 e bad news began with a phone call. It kicked off a chain of events that would consume the next several years of Mark Wittstadt's life and bring about the collapse of the company he had helped build. Now, some five and a half years after that portentous phone call, the dust has settled but the debris remains. roughout 2014 and 2015, the headlines surrounding Nathan Hardwick IV—previously one of Wittstadt's partners, who served as CEO of LandCastle Title and Managing Partner of Morris Hardwick Schneider (MHS)—flew fast and furiously as the details of Hardwick's misdeeds came to light. Unfortunately for Wittstadt, those headlines also included speculation about what Wittstadt's own role in the emerging embezzlement scheme might have been. Since then, both Wittstadt and his brother and partner, Gerard "Rod" Wittstadt, have been exonerated and, in February 2019, Hardwick was handed a 15-year sentence by a federal judge in Atlanta. But the damage was done. Morris Hardwick Schneider became a casualty of the crime, with hundreds of jobs destroyed and the Wittstadts being forced to burn through tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees spent dealing with the aftermath and shortfalls incurred by the case. And yet, as a new year dawns, so too does a brighter future for Wittstadt, who has spent the intervening years building Lawyers Title Exchange and the firm, Wittstadt and Wittstadt, and LTX Law Group. Notably, Wittstadt is also, for the first time since Morris Hardwick Schneider collapsed, returning to the default space. As of early 2020, Wittstadt now serves in an Of Counsel role for the firm of Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer, P.A., working in mid-Atlantic default cases. "Success is built out of a series of failures," Mark Wittstadt told DS News. "Your story is who you are. You can let other people tell your story, or you can own it and define it. I'm not here to say this never happened to me … but it's my story." How do you go about rebuilding a career atop a foundation of ashes scorched black by someone you once trusted? How do you start again in an industry you love when, to this day, a Google search of your name returns a slideshow of your worst days? It takes a certain amount of moxie to return to the room that holds that many bad memories— but Wittstadt is determined to step over them and make something new. THE FIRST DOMINO e twisting tale of Nathan Hardwick IV and the fall of Morris Hardwick Schneider was extensively chronicled as more details emerged and litigation dragged on through the decade. It's not surprising—the case had all the makings of a Grisham novel or a late-night TV legal thriller, with millions of GROWING SOMETHING NEW Mark Wittstadt's firm collapsed under the weight of a partner's fraud in 2014. Now he's returning to default servicing to prove that the past doesn't constrain the future. Feature By: David Wharton

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