Salon.com: Hope Springs Eternal

This week, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley sued five of the biggest banks in the country – including Bank of America, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo – for alleged foreclosure fraud.

As the New York Times noted, the move “diminishes the likelihood of a comprehensive settlement between the banks and federal and state officials to resolve foreclosure improprieties.”

And Coakley’s suit comes just as Occupy Wall Street organizers are planning a campaign focusing on the foreclosure crisis that will likely feature eviction defenses, protests at banks and the like. The Occupy Our Homes project is launching on Tuesday.

But the foreclosure crisis can be dizzyingly complex, and the issue is still opaque to many Americans who have not been directly affected. For an update on what’s going and to get context on the Coakley suit, I spoke to Alan White, a visiting professor at Tulane law school who has written widely on the foreclosure crisis.