Mark Rechner - Debt Collection Attorney Profile

ABOUT MARK RECHNER 

PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION,
LITIGATION RECORD, AND TYPICAL PLEADINGS 

Mark Rechner, whose full name is Mark August Rechner, is a Dallas-based debt collection attorney with the lawfirm Vincent Lopez Serafino Jenevein PC. He received his law degree from Baylor University in 2007 and was admitted to practice of law by the Texas Supreme Court that same year. Attorney Rechner does not provide any details regarding his practice or specific services on the his official State Bar profile page, which was last certified 1/29/2014. Nor does Attorney Rechner's official profile feature a photo or a hotlink to his firm's website.

This attorney profile includes information obtained from court record and other sources.

LICENSE NUMBER AND NAME VARIANTS 

This attorney's name appears as MARK RECHNER on pleadings (without middle initial). The State Bar shows his attorney's complete legal name as MARK AUGUST RECHNER. There is no problem with confusion in the legal profession because there are no other Texas attorneys that share the same last name. There is, however, a person with the same name at JPMorgan, an Executive Director in Sydney Australia, who previously worked for Deutsche Bank. There are also a few other people with the same first and last name on LinkedIn, including one in Houston, albeit in the different industry. The surname "Rechner" is German in origin and means "calculator" or, in modern parlance, "computer".

STATE BAR NUMBER FOR ATTORNEY MARK A. RECHNER: 24058064

COMPLAINT HISTORY 

The State Bar of Texas (SBOT) reports no public disciplinary history for this attorney.

LAWFIRM AFFILIATION AND ADDRESS 

VINCENT LOPEZ SERAFINO JENEVEIN, P.C.
1601 Elm Street, Ste 4100
Dallas, Texas 75201
214-979-7400
214-979-7402

OTHER ATTORNEYS WITH THE SAME FIRM, CURRENT OR FORMER

Thomas M. Sellers (on the pleadings in firm address block)

Thomas Sellers, Attorney at Vincent Lopez Serafino Jenevein, PC, is also a graduate of Baylor University Law School. He earned his BA at the University of Texas in Austin in 2006.

There are other lawyers with this firm, which is active on a wider spectrum of the legal services market geared toward the corporate/business sector, but their names do not appear in consumer debt suit litigation.

STAFF AND OTHER RELATED PERSONS 

Notaries used by Mark Rechner: Amy R. Martinez; Maida Lerma; Jolene Hall; Jason T. Palguta
Legal Assistant: Amy R. Martinez

OTHER PROFESSIONAL PROFILES 

According to Attorney Mark Rechner's LinkedIn page, he has been with his current employer since 2007, i.e. eight years. He is identified as a "Law Practice Professional" with Waco, Texas as this practice area. The LinkedIn profile reports his prior employer as Vincent Moye. This Mark Rechner (there are others with the same name) has 114 connections on LinkedIn.

CREDITORS ON WHOSE BEHALF MARK RECHNER FILES LAWSUITS 

WELLS FARGO BANK NA (original debt suits and garnishment actions after judgment)

CASES IN HARRIS COUNTY (HOUSTON) 

For the time period 2010-2014 Attorney Mark Rechner is listed as attorney of record in 32 cases in Harris County Civil Courts at Law. All recent cases are either garnishment actions filed against banks or other entities believed to be holding funds owned by debtors who ended up with judgments, or cases seeking other post-judgment relief, such as turnover of assets.

For the same four-year time period, Attorney Mark Rechner is listed as attorney of record in 439 cases in Harris County District Courts, 118 of which were filed in 2014. While the majority of debt case are filed in county courts at law, the Wells Fargo collection suits handled by Rechner are filed in district courts. These are much more numerous than the county courts at law. New cases are assigned randomly. Wells Fargo debt collection suits come in four categories: DEBT, CONTRACT, BREACH OF CONTRACT, and GARNISHMENT cases. The debt, contract, and breach cases, however, are not really distinguishable because these are overlapping classifications on the district clerk's docketing system.

CASES IN FORT BEND COUNTY  

CASES IN DALLAS COUNTY 

COMMENT ON PLEADINGS FILED BY THIS TEXAS LAWYER 

Attorney Rechner's standard petition consists of four pages. Like the Texas attorneys for ZWICKER & ASSOCIATES Rechner pleads breach of contract as the sole theory. He no longer includes alternative legal theories that are equitable in nature. Such theories are incompatible with the presence of a formal written contract that control the claim and the relationship of the parties.

--> Express contract precludes equitable relief.

The case-specific content in a standard petition in credit card debt cases includes the account origination date. The underlying contract is referenced as "Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Card Customer Agreement and Disclosure Statement" (see image at the bottom of this page).

American Express also used to have wordy and unwieldy titles on its cardmember agreement, but has since replaced them with new versions that have the name of the cardholder(s) printed on Part 1. Wells Fargo, by contrast, still relies on oddly captioned generic cardmember agreements that contain neither the name of the customer, nor the account number. The account-specific credit terms are printed on a separate document. This makes sense because those terms vary among account holders based on the credit scores, spending and payment history, and other risk-related variables that the bank consideres in pricing decisions. Unlike some other debt collection attorneys, Rechner does not attach the cardmember agreement or any other exhibits to his collection suit petitions; nor does he serve any discovery requests with the initial pleading.

APPLICATIONS FOR WRIT OF GARNISHMENT 

In his garnishment applications, Attorney Rechner does not reveal what research was undertaken to determine the facts upon which the application for writ of garnishment is based. A garnishment is a separate lawsuit brought against a bank or other entity that is believed to hold assets that belong to the judgment defendant. The purpose of the action is to capture those funds in satisfaction (or partial satisfaction) of the underlying judgment. The most common type of a garnishment actions is against a bank at which the judgment debtor has a checking or savings account. The garnishment is brought against the bank, but the judgment-debtor must also be given notice, and may contest the garnishment and seek dissolution of the writ, if there are legitimate grounds for it. Some types of funds, such as social security benefits, for example, are protected and are not subject to garnishment.

SAMPLE DOCUMENTS / SNIPPETS OF PLEADINGS FILED BY ATTORNEY RECHNER 

EXCERPT FROM A WELLS FARGO PETITION FILED IN DECEMBER 2014 THAT STATES A BREACH-OF-CONTRACT CLAIM ONLY, PLUS A CLAIM FOR ATTORNEY'S FEES

EXCERPT FROM OLDER ORIGINAL PETITION FILED BY MARK RECHNER IN WELLS FARGO BANK DEBT CASE: UNJUST ENRICHMENT AND MONEY HAD AND RECEIVED THEORIES PLEADED DESPITE CLAIM BASED ON LOAN CONTRACT (BREACH OF CONTRACT).

MARK RECHNER'S LAW FIRM ADDRESS BLOCK FROM PLEADING, AND SAMPLE JOHN HANCOCK. Note: Some of the pleading are apparently signed by his colleague Tom Sellers, even though Rechner is designated as attorney in charge.

FEE AFFIDAVIT WITH TESTIMONY ON HOURLY RATES

EXCERPT FROM GARNISHMENT APPLICATION - AFFIDAVIT

WHAT A WELLS FARGO CREDIT CARD AGREEMENT LOOKS LIKE 

LINKS TO RELATED PAGES 

Profile of law firm: VINCENT LOPEZ SERAFINO JENEVEIN
Directory of creditors and collectors: WHO IS WHO IN DEBT COLLECTION IN TEXAS
Creditor profile: Credit Card Debt Suits by Wells Fargo Bank N. A.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND HISTORY: This profile was first posted on 1/10/2015 and has since been updated with a name of a notary public.  The SBOT and LinkedIn profile pages of Attorney Mark Rechner were last visited on 1/9/2015.