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1. Posted by MSG - 2 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 22 hours, 41 minutes ago

   Really innovative defense - “I was just doing what everyone else was doing” Try using that in court and see how far you get pal.

2. Posted by Jan - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours, 14 minutes ago

   Umm...tell me again, why is it that lawyers have such a bad rap?

3. Posted by Gruppenfurher - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 4 hours, 40 minutes ago

   "I vuz jus’ following orduz.”

4. Posted by Charles W. Skinner - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 22 hours, 5 minutes ago

   This may just be a missing piece of the article, but nowhere in the article does it say that he was drawing pay from the districts in addition to the fees being paid to his law firm.  It says that he was listed as a full time employee, and the firm was paid.  Not a peep about dual compensation.

   So he’s listed as a full time employee.  So what.  It’s the same as a retainer agreement, where they pay a set fee to the firm for keeping the attorney on board at their beck and call.  I know a lot of people in many fields that are listed as full time employees for multiple firms even though they don’t technically work there full time.  They benefit by draw a reduced salary but still accruing deferred or tax exempt benefits and the companies they work for benefit from being able to claim “we have X as a full time employee” because X may have some special expertise in a field or may be a “long ball hitter” in that speciallity.

   The IRS can wail and moan all they want about the arrangement, but if he wasn’t being dual paid and the benefits were deferrable, they can try to make a claim of “form over substance.” If all he was doing was accruing deferred benefits, then there isn’t anything that they can go after, because he hasn’t had any income.

   But, again.  Maybe I don’t have all the facts here.

5. Posted by Just the Facts - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 19 hours, 22 minutes ago

   To supplement the facts in response to comment #4:
   “The districts allegedly paid some $2.5 million in legal fees for his services as part-time legal counsel, but simultaneously listed him as a full-time employee so that he could receive health benefits and a pension.”

   This, at a minimum, should clarify that this was merely a “records keeping” practice.  As a result of the allegedly fraudulent practice, Mr. Reich was to receive a full pension from 5 different schools which he would only have been entitled to were he a full time employee.  These facts nullify Mr. Skinner’s comments that this was some harmless data entry practice.

   I’d call that “unscrupulous” at a minimum.  It’s essentially theft from taxpayers. This is just another example of the rampant systematic corruption and fraud within the administration of New York public schools.  I had never seen so many investigations (& successful prosecutions) of embezzlement and abusive transfers of tax payer assets through the school systems by administrators until moving to New York five years ago.  Perhaps, my moving to New York coincided with a nationwide trend.  Alas, that’s irrelevant.  Theft is theft. 

   Source: http://www.abajournal.com/news/feds_and_state_investigate_ny_lawyer_who_worked_1286_days_in_a_year/

6. Posted by Just the Facts - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 19 hours, 21 minutes ago

   Correction to #5:
   This, at a minimum, should clarify that this was NOT merely a “records keeping” practice.

7. Posted by Ramiscal - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 17 hours, 19 minutes ago

   Rather then adress the obvious outcome, can someone in this field tell me how Mr. Reich could have protected himself?

8. Posted by Sean Heeger - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 16 hours, 35 minutes ago

   He can probably help himself by hiring one of his fellow “Good Ole Boy Network” friends to defend him.

   I’m sure they know the ropes on matters like this. Plenty of good practice I’m sure.

9. Posted by willie garofalo - 2 months, 3 weeks, 22 hours, 13 minutes ago

   pension and health benefit plans are trusts, people obtaining benefits that they are not entitled to are potentially committing theft, as are all of those who abetted them.  We don’t know the terms of these plans, but this looks bad.  As to how you avoid this, there is obvious answer:

   “Iif it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” He is obtaining benefits that normally would not accrue to a retained consultant, that should put you on notice that you need to make sure that what would normally seem to be a scam is not.  You can’t just say oh, doesn’t everyone get great benefits when they are not employees?

   The other question is whether this “f-t” designation means that he was getting paid excessive fees.  Not clear - yet.

10. Posted by legal eagle - 2 months, 3 weeks, 19 hours, 40 minutes ago

    Sig, heil!

11. Posted by Abbott Leban - 2 months, 3 weeks, 15 hours, 24 minutes ago

    Based on the reputation of Nassau County created by decades of press reports on governmental wrongdoing there, the story is not surprising.  Presumably, all emplloyees of Long Island public school districts who are covered by and would qualify for some pension benefits under the criteria of the New York State Teachers Retirement System (or the Common Retirement System) can earn no more pension credit than what they are entitled to under the benefit structure of the appiicable state level system.  And group health benefit plans generally “coordinate” duplicate coverage so that no claimant can profit from submission of duplicate benefit claims.  Nevertheless, it’s damning that the school districts are conniving in the quintuplicate full-time employments that have been maintained by them when each has to know that such impossible fact, and its records that reflect that, are spurious.  And for what lawful reason would any attorney attempt to rig these arrangements other than to derive excessive compensation or employee benefits from some combination of the employers and the benefit systems?  Not all the facts are clear, nor are they “in,” since it’s possible separate benefits may have been bargained for directly with and from one or more of the school districts, just as the legal fees might have been.  But that question leaves unanswered whether the aggregate fees billed to the school districts were excessive (if not fraudulent), and whether the schools have the legal authority to furnish pension and health benefits to any real full-time employee by means that lie outside the state benefit programs or, when professional services are provided by outside attorneys or law firms, to persons who are legally, most probably, only independent contractors.  Comments Nos. 5 and 9 are most appropriate and on the mark.
    Abbott Leban (former Chief Counsel, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Retirement Systems)

12. Posted by Anthony McManus - 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 37 minutes ago

    hasn’t violated any laws?
    how about fraud, theft, maybe forging public documents?
    and his partner sees it only as a PR problem?

13. Posted by Tony - 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 31 minutes ago

    It’s not always that the lawyer wants to be listed as full time so he can get benefits.  We are frequently compelled to show people we would otherwise employ as contractors, as being full-time exempt employees because the stupid freaking employment laws won’t allow employers the freedom to contract.  The states are blood thirsty for their few pennies of unemployment insurance, so if you dare engage a professional and use his SSN and name, they will declare him a de facto employee and fine you for failing to pay unemployment.  We’ve already been fined for one lawyer we hired just to do some SEC reporting after our in-house SEC associate quit in the middle of our 10K. 

    Moreover, being a full-time exempt employee (ALL lawyers are capable of being exempt under the FLSA learned professionals exemption), again, the stupid arcane employment laws require that if the worker works at least 1 hour during a week, they must be paid their full weekly salary.  You can’t doc their pay for working less than 40 hours.  You can make them take vacation if the time is available, but if they claim to be on the job, then depending on your vacation program, they get paid for the full week.  Some professionals have learned how to milk that by going on vacation and checking their voicemail and email regularly to reduce the time they have to report.  So, the government lives by the sword, and the tax payers die by it.  More evidence why governments are inherently incompetent and shouldn’t be trusted to regulate a ham sandwhich! 

    Consistent with employment law, it is conceiveable that this guy could work a dozen or more full time jobs.  Kind of like how your anesthesiologist can oversee up to six operations at the same time and get fully reimbursed for all of them.  We presently have highly compensated consultants on the payroll that we couldn’t engage as contractors at an hourly rate, that we just had to agree to a salary for and then let them do their thing.  For all I know, they are doing the same thing for 100 different companies.  I would have preferred to contract with them and pay them per hour, but the fines weren’t worth the trouble. 

    Leave the poor guy alone and attack the problem, the stupid employment laws.