Brooklyn courts are speeding through hundreds of foreclosure cases, skipping a crucial step meant to ensure low-income homeowners have a lawyer to help work out a settlement before losing their valuable properties, according to a class-action lawsuit filed on Wednesday in state court.

The complaint filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and a handful of private lawyers on Wednesday accuses the state’s Office of Court Administration, which runs the legal system, and judges in Brooklyn of undermining a state law that requires the courts to assess whether a property owner can afford an attorney or should be appointed free legal representation in the “high stakes, confusing and intimidating” proceedings.