Leading With Gratitude: Anna Lin on Leadership and Growing Through the Ranks

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in the November edition of MortgagePoint magazine.

In an industry often defined by persistence, precision, and people skills, few embody all three quite like En-Chia “Anna” Lin, Principal and President of Roach & Lin, P.C.

Over nearly two decades, Anna has climbed every rung of the firm—from part-time intern to managing attorney to majority shareholder—all while guiding clients through some of the most complex foreclosure cases in New York’s notoriously challenging legal landscape.

Anna is admitted to the bars of New York, New Jersey, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. In addition, Anna is fluent in Chinese, Taiwanese, and conversational Spanish. As a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University (B.A., Economics) and St. John’s University School of Law (J.D.), she has become a respected voice in foreclosure, litigation, loss mitigation, and real estate law, as well as a role model for women and minority professionals navigating the legal and mortgage default sectors. In this conversation, Anna reflects on her journey from law student to
firm principal, the lessons she learned from her mentor, and the three values that guide her leadership: gratitude, authenticity, and hard work.

You worked your way up through the ranks to your current position. Could you talk a little bit about how you reached your current role with the firm?

I started working for Peter Roach in 2005 as a part-time law student. During that time, I brought in several new bank clients through my personal connections. Peter famously asked, “Who is this Anna? Why is this young law student getting me bank clients?”

I didn’t think of it as anything special at the time. I just believed in the firm and in Peter. I wanted to recommend him to friends who owned or worked with banks.

After I worked through my law school years, when I graduated, he didn’t have an attorney position for me, so I went out and became a litigator down in the Wall Street area. I worked in litigation, defending elevator companies.

Peter called me up a year and a half later and said, “I remembered you, and I remembered your work ethic. Why don’t you come back and work for me?” Long story short, I came back to work for him as an associate attorney. He taught me everything I needed to know about foreclosure, because my experience was limited at the time. While working with Peter, I took every possible opportunity to learn from him.

Peter was a professor at St. John’s Law School, and he taught foreclosures for 35 years. I had the perfect professor and tutor by my side every single day. I was an associate, then I became the managing attorney for his foreclosure department, which was very small at that time. It helped me progress because I was able to “start small” in terms of managing the team.

As I was learning, Peter came and asked, “Anna, would you like to be a contract partner for me?” I initially responded with “No.” He said, “What? You might be the only attorney in the world who would turn down a partnership.” I replied, “I don’t need for you to give me a title for me to be loyal—I truly believe in the firm and am so grateful for you.” At that time, I didn’t believe that I deserved that title because I didn’t know what it meant to be a partner.

Peter started teaching me the business aspects of running a law firm, which prompted me to start looking at foreclosures in a different light. As a partner, my understanding of this job continued to evolve. I started going to conferences where I made connections and relationships with clients, both existing and new, and I loved it! I always emphasized the importance of being responsive, and as the years went on, clients would reach out to me, which resulted in gaining a lot of trust amongst the clients. I was thrilled to see the results—our firm started to grow!

In 2018, I became the majority shareholder and the president of the firm. Our firm became a state-certified, minority-owned law firm and a woman-owned law firm.

Can you also talk about the benefits and challenges of the approach to having a single-state footprint?

One of the challenges of being a single-state firm is that when the industry shifts or banks and lenders decide to downsize the size of their networks of law firms, single-state firms may be at a disadvantage. While I believe this may be true nationally, New York is one of the most difficult states in which to complete a foreclosure. I do believe that focusing on providing legal services in an extraordinarily challenging state such as New York has many benefits to our clients.

When you have a team that is dedicated to focusing on all of the nuances of New York law, it translates to excellent performance and work product. At my firm, we not only teach our staff how to do certain aspects of their job, but we also want them to fully understand “why.”

Many times, we tell them to read case law—and this doesn’t only apply to our attorneys. Even paralegals and legal assistants are taught here as if it were a law firm setting. I think the benefit for our clients is that we know the rules inside and out.

Peter always teaches his staff when handling a file, “Imagine this is your own money—if settlement is not possible, how could you get your money back as soon as possible?” We’re taught to zealously represent our clients, and where there is no settlement possible, to process the file by focusing on getting their money back as quickly and efficiently as possible. We are, of course, also taught to work with homeowners to ensure the best result in loss mitigation efforts.

As the one who supervises day-to-day operations, how do you balance managing client expectations while implementing your conditioned legal knowledge?

As I mentioned, when no settlement is possible after exhausting all loss mitigation efforts, our goal is to get our clients’ money back as soon as possible and as efficiently as possible. For us to do that, we have to know the law inside out and always think “outside the box” so we can expedite a foreclosure action.

To meet our clients’ expectations, we must know the law very well and use our experience to say, “We’ve done this in this other case,” or “we’ve tried this before,” or “we know what the title insurance company is looking for,” so that we are always aware of all options.

You are fluent in Chinese, Taiwanese, and conversational Spanish. How does this multilingual ability enhance client relationships, particularly in one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world (New York)?

I’m very grateful to be able to have a different cultural background, a different linguistic background. It helps me understand people in different ways.

Multilingual ability helps, for example, when I’m pitching an idea to a Chinese-speaking bank, and they want to feel comfortable working with somebody who may understand their culture and background. However, our work product must always be excellent and top-notch.

As for languages, it can help when you’re meeting with different personnel or executives that might have similar backgrounds, or on the other hand, they might appreciate the fact that you are influenced by a variety of cultures. That, I think, is a great conversation piece.

I love that I can encourage and motivate people of all backgrounds because I want them to come out of their shells. I want them to be empowered. That’s a big thing for me. You have to work hard, and if you don’t, somebody will come and take that place. It will not matter that you are multilingual, a minority, or female—if you don’t work hard, you don’t earn that place.

How do you foster strong working relationships?

Communication is key. Our office puts a tremendous emphasis on being responsive. We have an internal rule that staff must respond to clients within 24 business hours, up to a maximum of 48 business hours, only if there’s a valid reason.

What are the biggest lessons you have learned during your career?

Be grateful. I am so grateful for every opportunity that I receive, and for every friendship that I’ve developed in this industry and in this field. Be genuine. Be a good person. Just being a good human goes such a long way. Again, I’m just so thankful—every opportunity, every person I speak with, I don’t take it for granted.

I did a panel for St. John’s Law School where 500 students were there, and the topic was on race and leadership, amongst other things. I shared that I’ve been very blessed in my life—I’ve wanted to be an attorney since seventh grade. Because of my background, I feel that I can motivate people. Performance and work speak for themselves. If I can motivate somebody, then that’s my biggest source of happiness.

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