With the rash of foreclosures across the country in recent years, many lawyers have specialized in the lucrative business of handling cases for banks and loan servicers. Now that flaws are being acknowledged by big lenders in the processing of foreclosures, some of them are finding themselves in the cross hairs of investigators -- and scorned by their former clients. Lawyers affiliated with so-called foreclosure mills -- the processing centers run by law firms -- are coming under scrutiny. In addition, recent lawsuits filed in Mississippi and Kentucky have charged that lawyers handling foreclosures entered into illegal fee-splitting arrangements with two publicly traded companies involved in mortgage-related services, Lender Processing Services and Prommis Solutions. Officials of both companies deny the accusations. Lawyers who knowingly file fraudulent documents or fail to properly oversee subordinates involved in the preparation of such records can face criminal charges or professional sanctions ranging from disbarment to suspension, said Raymond H. Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School in New York state. The furor over the submission of fraudulent or improperly signed foreclosure-related filings was ignited in September when GMAC Mortgage, now a part of Ally Financial, acknowledged that it had submitted inaccurate documents. The nationwide investigation announced this week by the country's 50 attorneys general is expected to focus in part on the role of lawyers in the submission of allegedly fraudulent mortgage records signed by robo-signers. But there have been other instances in recent years in which lawyers have been accused of submitting false, inaccurate or incomplete documents in foreclosure-related proceedings so as to churn through cases and collect fees. Kathleen C. Engel, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, says she believes that banks have been long aware of such questionable legal practices but choose not to challenge them for fear of slowing the pace of foreclosures. Years ago, lawyers once handled and verified most of the paperwork involved in a foreclosure. But the advent of mortgage securitization a decade ago, financial experts say, gave rise to a parallel legal industry. In it, a law firm is paid a flat fee by loan servicers to handle a foreclosure, which is lucrative for lawyers who process a high volume of cases. 'This is a very profitable business model,' said O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer in Shelby, N.C., who defends homeowners in foreclosure proceedings. 'You've got five lawyers and 400 people without legal training working for them.' According to the lawsuits filed this month against Lender Processing Services and Prommis Solutions, plaintiffs' lawyers accused the companies of using various mechanisms to steer legal work to so-called foreclosure mills, then splitting legal fees with the lawyers running those operations. 