One Lawyer on Payroll of Seven N.Y. Fire Districts

Legal Ethics

One Lawyer on Payroll of Seven N.Y. Fire Districts

Posted Jul 29, 2008, 05:38 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

At least 14 New York special districts that provide government services such as fire protection and garbage collection have private lawyers on the payrolls.

One lawyer, William Glass, was on the payroll of seven fire districts at once, Newsday reports. Two of them paid him legal fees of more than $25,000 at the same time he received a paycheck as an employee, while five others did not pay any outside legal fees, the story says. All the districts provided pension credits and one provided health benefits.

Glass has earned more than $530,000 in salary and legal fees from the fire districts since 2002. In that same period nine lawyers working for special districts have earned more than $2 million in salaries and fees for their work as independent contractors.

Glass claims his arrangement was legal. “In my opinion, it's a matter of form over substance,” he told Newsday.

Newsday has run a series of articles that highlighted private lawyers who were on the payrolls of New York school districts.

A hat tip to Legal Blog Watch.

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Posted by BigKapono - 4 months, 6 days, 16 hours, 10 minutes ago

“form over substance”...only a lawyer getting paid in the manner in which he was could say such a thing…
Posted by kay sieverding - 4 months, 6 days, 4 hours, 52 minutes ago

Maybe someone was looking the other way at fire code violations. Something that made profits such as overly full nightclubs or inadequate sprinkler systems. Why did this situation go on so long without press? Lots of people must have known about this.

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