N.Y. AG's Lawyer-Pay Probe Expands to 172 School Districts
An ongoing New York state probe of double-dipping by private lawyers representing school districts in Long Island has been expanded to Westchester County.
After previously asking all 124 Long Island school districts to provide information about the way they have paid their lawyers, the state attorney general’s office is now asking all 48 Westchester school districts to do so, reports Newsday. A parallel federal investigation into at least some of the Long Island school districts is also reportedly ongoing.
Says Jeffrey Lerner, a spokesman for attorney general Andrew Cuomo: “In our experience, inappropriate practices that exploit the system are not limited to a single jurisdiction. They tend to spread throughout the state. We are committed to uncovering the full scope of these problems and developing a solution that ends them.”
As discussed in previous ABAJournal.com posts, the dual state and federal probes were sparked when the newspaper reported that a Long Island attorney, Lawrence Reich, allegedly had been listed by five school districts as a full-time employee while representing them as a private lawyer, in order to qualify for a state pension and health benefits.
Saying that he had done nothing wrong, Reich reportedly told Newsday earlier this month “I followed essentially a practice that was very common among my colleagues in the industry.”
Another Long Island lawyer, Carol Hoffman, has reportedly written at least two letters to school districts requesting such double-dipping arrangements, one in 1998 and one in 2001.
