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80 Wittstadt said that he was growing increasingly concerned about the potential extent of the problem. But he said nothing could have prepared him for the reality of that $37 million total. Wittstadt set a meeting with the firm's founding and retired partner Art Morris and with representatives from Fidelity National Financial. After explaining the situation, and desperate to try and offset the shortfall in the escrow accounts and prevent a large, widespread impact to affected homeowners, the group soon came to an agreement: Fidelity would acquire a 70% stake in LandCastle Title. Hardwick resigned as CEO of LandCastle and Wittstadt was named Executive Managing Partner of MHS. However, Hardwick's attempts to borrow from outside parties in order to make up for the shortfall soon came back to haunt the firm, kicking off a barrage of litigation that would stretch over many ensuing months. Hardwick reportedly secured loans from two people: business associate James Pritchard and Johnson. In October 2014, Johnson sued Hardwick, the Wittstadts, and the law firm of MHS, alleging that the parties involved had conspired to steal the $3 million he had extended Hardwick as a loan. According to Johnson's suit, Hardwick allegedly told Johnson that the firm would repay him $4 million in monthly installments. Hardwick also reportedly borrowed $2 million from Pritchard, with repayment allegedly to come in 24 monthly installments and eventually totaling a $2.3 million repayment. Obviously, neither payment plan commenced as planned, and the lawsuits soon followed in the fall of 2014. Johnson finally reached a $2 million settlement agreement in June 2016, part of the bankruptcy plan instigated as the firm reached the final stages of its collapse. Notably, Johnson admitted as part of the settlement agreements that neither of the Wittstadts had any involvement in the loan made to Hardwick. Pritchard ultimately secured a $2 million judgment against the firm, which was handled in the bankruptcy. "It was a waterfall," Wittstadt said. "It just kept coming." SALVAGING WHAT MATTERED As Mark Wittstadt and his brother navigated a maze of litigation, conflicting stories, and financial collapse, they were also working to try and ensure that the fallout didn't reach the homeowners who had entrusted their escrow funds to LandCastle Title and MHS. We were fighting battles on five different fronts," Wittstadt said. "And I was prepared to fight those battles, because we didn't do anything. But I was spread too thin." "I was trying to fix it all the way up until the day we filed for bankruptcy," he continued. "I had worked my entire legal career to get to where it was, and filing for bankruptcy was the last thing that I wanted to do. We tried for almost a year to pull out, and every time we thought we'd get a step ahead, we'd just get knocked back. e legal bills were just astronomical. e amount of money we were spending to defend ourselves against all these false and frivolous allegations against my brother and I, and against the firm, just became too much for us to overcome." In July 2015, they made the call and filed for bankruptcy. But while this was no small decision, it didn't mean Wittstadt and his partners were out of the woods. Rather than turning things over to a trustee, the Wittstadts opted to stay and oversee the final steps. "Once we filed bankruptcy, the firm was done," Wittstadt said. "We knew that. But, as lawyers, we recognized that we had undertaken the obligation to all of our clients to represent them under the code of conduct that's required of lawyers. We had an ethical and moral obligation to make sure that that was done correctly." Wittstadt first contacted Jeffrey R. Waxman, a Partner at Morris James LLP and one of the attorneys who helped oversee the bankruptcy proceedings, on or around May 2015. "ey had a very short period of time in which to file for bankruptcy," Waxman said. "To their credit, Mark and Rod were stand- up individuals throughout the process, despite the fact that it would have been easy for them to simply say, 'is is more than I bargained for, I'm washing my hands and walking away.' e two of them stuck through it for the entire process." Wittstadt recalled, "We had a lot of money in our escrow accounts that needed to get back to who it belonged to. We had a number of real estate closings that needed to be completed. We needed to make sure deeds were recorded, mortgages were paid off, releases filed—those types of things. So, we had to maintain a staff to be able to wind that business down. We had to account for whose money it was and ensure that the default escrow accounts, the ones that I had managed, were reconciled to the penny." Well, perhaps not to the penny. "We were off by like five cents," said Wittstadt with a wry laugh. "Mark and his brother did far more than any other firm [in this type of situation] that I've seen to date," said Rudy Casanova, President of Rainmaker Solutions and an industry colleague of Wittstadt. "ere have been other firms in the past who would just wash their hands of their situation [once bankruptcy begins]. In one of those situations, my company was harmed and we received $1 million judgment—of which we received zero dollars. Mark and his brother did far more than most people would have to maintain their integrity in the industry." Waxman recalled, "is was one of the more difficult cases that I've ever had. is "Success is built out of a series of failures. 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." —Mark Wittstadt

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