Stephen Morel

affected parties in the property and maximize returns for the participating investor. In 2014, Morel created an industry-first title insurance product along with a systematic underwriting procedure specifically for evaluating and insuring the risk of a tax sale. To date, this novel insurance product and process have enabled the return to commerce and the active tax rolls of thousands of properties throughout Louisiana thought to be uninsurable, and virtually all of which were severely delinquent, blighted, and/or abandoned, with clear, merchantable and insured title, generating millions in unbudgeted revenue for local governments and untold more in succeeding years, often with new improvements garnering substantially higher assessments. In 2015, leveraging the early success of Morel’s tax title insurance product, U.S. National Title Insurance Company was formed, becoming the first national title underwriter to exclusively service the tax sale title industry. Morel served as U.S. National’s Chief Legal Officer from 2016 to 2018 and helped guide its initial organization, agent development and business expansion. In 2015, Morel represented the tax sale purchaser in Louisiana’s first reported case2 evaluating the state's 2009, completely overhauled tax sale code,3 initially resulting in an unfavorable and erroneous ruling by the Appellate Court, but which was subsequently overruled by the state supreme court in a different case only two years later.4 Since 2014, Morel has served on the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Tax Sales Committee where he has co-authored a re-draft of the state’s entire delinquent ad valorem tax collection system, slated for legislative review and public referendum in 2021. Morel also currently serves as legislative commissioner for the National Tax Lien Association and frequently speaks on a wide range of legal and title issues affecting tax sales to both government and professional associations across Louisiana and in numerous other states. Morel is a 1999 graduate of Louisiana State University, a 2002 graduate of the LSU Law Center, and in 2001, was honorably discharged from the Louisiana Army National Guard as an intelligence NCO after eight years of service. Morel founded and operated a successful real estate title company and law practice from 1996 to 2015, and was the Chief Legal Officer for CivicSource, which created the first software-based tax sale administrative service and online auction platform for local government, from 2015 to 2019, and in 2019, founded and currently serves as CEO of JurisDeed, an innovative PropTech business that is revolutionizing clear title to real estate, enabling anyone with the power to unlock prosperity from the world's most powerful asset - land ownership.