90 Thousand Reasons the Berkeley Heights Public School District Needs to Hire a New Law Firm Next Year

And Why Other NJ Districts Should Reconsider Hiring “Mega-Firms”

Our favorite law firm, Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri, and Jacobs, hit the 90K mark this month, taking in 50% of the District’s spending, which totaled ~180.000 according to Bill Lists from 1/2023 Through 12/2023. The firm surpassed the entirety of the District’s legal expenditure for the fiscal year before Dr. Varley’s tenure this October.

Total legal spending is over double the amount.

As we’ve reported, other outlets have expressed concerns about the firm’s political connections and donations to political campaigns . We begin to wonder whether the fact that this firm that is on the payroll of so many Districts is connected to their knowledge of the law or more due to their perceived influence. We also wonder whether such a large firm with so much political involvement is a healthy player in representing School Districts.

Think about this as a parent or a BOE Member who wants change. Imagine fighting against a decision you feel is wrong facing a District that employs a firm with extensive involvement across the state (school boards, judges, other firms), elected representatives on the payroll, and healthy donations to political campaigns. How are you feeling about your chances of getting a fair shake?

In many ways it could make a Board of Education feel even more invincible than it already is.  Is that a good thing for a government entity charged with representing families on one of the community’s most important investments?

Historically, Attorneys who serve school boards urged conservative approaches that protected Districts from violating the law and ethical standards versus using District resources and political influence to gain acceptance for strange and deviant interpretations of the law while playing high castle politics with dollars that should be going to our classrooms.

BHCW is chock full of facts connected to this firm’s practices in our District over the past three years. In the last two months, we presented what a former BOE Member in Lodi had to say about the firm. But there’s more to the story here. Recently, in Westfield:

Board of Education member Sahar Aziz is facing a state-level ethics complaint from a fellow board member, who alleges she “baselessly” directed a board-provided attorney to investigate board members and school personnel for colluding with a Westfield resident. (source)

Sound familiar? It should.

The complaint issued against Robert Cianciulli, Pamela Stanley, Mike D’Aquila, Angela Penna and Jordan Hyman. A decision about this complaint was adopted at the SEC meeting this week . The complaint alleges that multiple sections of the ethics code were violated when these members of the board voted to have the board attorney draft ethics charges against Sai Akiri. Despite Akiri’s reasoned warning, and Tom Foregger’s impassioned pleas to stop and think about what these board members were doing, they insisted on pushing forward. (source)

Now, what else is interesting about that mess in Westfield is the firm appears to be arguing an opposite position about the right of BOE Members to speak than they did in the now largely defunct ethics case against Ms. Akiri.

Yet, in its decision regarding Ms. Akiri’s ethics case, the SEC had to remind our BOE and its attorneys about the importance of free speech:

One of the first things this Board of Education can do next year to improve the District is find an Attorney who cares more about the law than building an empire.

Other NJ Districts should do the same.

Articles on the BHPSNJ Legal and Ethics Troubles

Articles on the 2023 Budget