Nassau County triples spending on outside lawyers under Blakeman administration
Nassau County allocated $20 million of taxpayer money last year to outsource legal work to private firms — more than triple what it spent before the arrival of County Executive Bruce Blakeman — as outside lawyers worked costly hours to resolve years-old legal battles and defend new political stances.
For years, Nassau spent somewhere between $3 million and $6 million on private law firms to defend itself in cases ranging from land disputes to wrongful arrest allegations. Blakeman upped that to $9 million after taking office in 2022, and last year the county budgeted $20 million — on top of the $10 million it budgets for in-house lawyers.
Newsday reviewed 80 contracts obtained through a Freedom of Information request, showing the county awarding tens of millions of dollars and often bypassing its own procurement rules that in most cases require multiple bids. Large contracts went to firms that have also done work for President Donald Trump or have donated to Republicans, including Blakeman.
Critics call the spending wasteful, but Blakeman said it has saved the county hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Nassau County’s outside counsel spending is through the roof,” Rory Lancman, Nassau Interim Finance Authority vice chair, wrote in a statement to Newsday, pointing to a suit against the state’s even-year election law that he said was “driven by publicity rather than any real benefit to Nassau residents.”
The county has 61 attorneys of its own, according to Blakeman’s office, and paid those attorneys and their support staff more than $10 million last year, according to payroll data. But Blakeman said some cases require extra muscle.
“While the Nassau County Attorney’s office does an outstanding job, there are some cases that require the special expertise of outside counsel,” he wrote in a statement to Newsday.
“Nassau County is no longer the legal pushover it was prior to my election,” Blakeman wrote, adding that the county has gotten “stellar results” in court thanks to its private lawyers, saving Nassau $400 million in financial liability from lawsuits.
Nassau County awarded $1.5 million to Sullivan & Cromwell — the behemoth firm President Donald Trump hired to fight his hush money case — to defend itself in a 2023 federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Long Beach man accused of trafficking stolen catalytic converters. The man sued the county, and Blakeman individually, for seizing $7.5 million in assets and robbing him of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in future earnings.
The county also turned to Sullivan & Cromwell when Hofstra University sued Nassau in a battle over the Coliseum property Blakeman sought to use for a casino, hiring the firm for $2.5 million. The firm’s partner rates run as high as $2,395 per hour, according to contracts obtained by Newsday.
Nassau County awarded $2.3 million to Greenberg Traurig — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s ex-law firm, and one of the nation’s largest — which Trump’s political operation “Save America” hired to work on several of the president’s criminal cases. The firm is representing Nassau County in an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging the Nassau Police Department racially discriminates against applicants in its hiring process.
Over the past two years, Nassau County has awarded $4 million to Sullivan & Cromwell, more than $4 million to Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, $2.6 million to the Law Office of Vincent D. McNamara, $2.6 million to Greenberg Traurig and $1.5 million to Bee Ready Fishbein Hatter & Donovan.
Suffolk County, in comparison, has budgeted about $3 million annually for outside firms. Hiring private lawyers cost taxpayers nearly $15 per resident in Nassau last year, compared with $2 in Suffolk.
Several of the firms that did work for Nassau County have donated thousands to the county GOP and Blakeman since he ran for county executive. Longtime Nassau GOP leader Peter Bee and his firm Bee Ready Fishbein Hatter & Donovan have donated $10,600 to Blakeman and more than $85,000 to the Nassau County Republican Committee since 2021. Jaspan Schlesinger Narendran, another firm contracted by the county, donated more than $16,000 to the committee during the same time frame.
Much of Nassau County’s spending on private firms is under contracts that predate Blakeman’s time — such as defending a 2018 lawsuit from a Freeport man who was imprisoned for more than 23 years on a murder conviction that was eventually vacated.
But Blakeman initiated others, such as when he sued Gov. Kathy Hochul for moving local elections to even-numbered years.
“Bruce Blakeman has turned Nassau County into an all-you-can-eat buffet for politically connected law firms — serving up million-dollar contracts at taxpayers’ expense,” Nassau County Legis. Seth Koslow wrote in a statement to Newsday.
“He lines the pockets of lawyers who just happen to pad his campaign war chest,” said Koslow, who is running for county executive.
Many of the contracts are “sole source,” meaning officials choose a firm without going through a competitive bidding process required by county policy. Counties and cities can bypass the bidding process during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic to secure urgent goods and services. In many cases, Nassau said it needed unique expertise.
Nassau County says its own policy and state law require a competitive bidding process that ensures contracts are given at a low cost to “qualified vendors with the integrity to warrant the award of public tax dollars.” It’s a policy that warns against sole source contracts, which it says “may subject the County to the demands of the vendor” and leave Nassau with “little leverage to obtain the best possible pricing.”
In the 2023 Hofstra lawsuit, the county hired Sullivan & Cromwell for $2.5 million as a sole source vendor, saying it “reviewed the existing special counsel panel for firms with relevant expertise in high profile litigation and was unable to find one.”
Thad Calebrese, a professor of public and nonprofit management at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, said that sometimes happens.
“There’s probably a kernel of truth in there,” Calabrese said. “But the question is: Are they using that as an excuse to effectively outsource the legal services of the county?”
While the county’s spending on private lawyers has tripled under Blakeman, its own legal staff — paid between $94,000 and $187,700 a year — is shrinking. When Blakeman took office in 2022, the county had 69 attorneys, ranging in experience from deputy county attorneys, special investigators and assistant attorneys. Last year, that number dropped to 61 attorneys.
But Calabrese said the 13% drop in headcount doesn’t justify a 200% increase in spending on private lawyers.
The Nassau Interim Finance Authority is auditing the county’s spending on private law firms. The watchdog group kicked off the audit in a meeting last week and expects to receive findings in six months.
Calabrese questioned what is driving the increase. “I would want to know what justifies that spending increase,” he said. “Whatever it is, is this the best use of your limited public funds?”
Nassau County allocated $20 million of taxpayer money last year to outsource legal work to private firms — more than triple what it spent before the arrival of County Executive Bruce Blakeman — as outside lawyers worked costly hours to resolve years-old legal battles and defend new political stances.
For years, Nassau spent somewhere between $3 million and $6 million on private law firms to defend itself in cases ranging from land disputes to wrongful arrest allegations. Blakeman upped that to $9 million after taking office in 2022, and last year the county budgeted $20 million — on top of the $10 million it budgets for in-house lawyers.
Newsday reviewed 80 contracts obtained through a Freedom of Information request, showing the county awarding tens of millions of dollars and often bypassing its own procurement rules that in most cases require multiple bids. Large contracts went to firms that have also done work for President Donald Trump or have donated to Republicans, including Blakeman.
Critics call the spending wasteful, but Blakeman said it has saved the county hundreds of millions of dollars.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Nassau County allocated $20 million of taxpayer money last year to outsource legal work to private firms — more than triple what it spent before the arrival of County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
- Newsday reviewed 80 contracts, showing the county awarding tens of millions of dollars and often bypassing its own procurement rules that in most cases require multiple bids.
-
Blakeman said that some cases require special expertise and that the county has gotten “stellar results” in court thanks to its private lawyers, saving Nassau $400 million in financial liability from lawsuits.
“Nassau County’s outside counsel spending is through the roof,” Rory Lancman, Nassau Interim Finance Authority vice chair, wrote in a statement to Newsday, pointing to a suit against the state’s even-year election law that he said was “driven by publicity rather than any real benefit to Nassau residents.”
The county has 61 attorneys of its own, according to Blakeman’s office, and paid those attorneys and their support staff more than $10 million last year, according to payroll data. But Blakeman said some cases require extra muscle.
“While the Nassau County Attorney’s office does an outstanding job, there are some cases that require the special expertise of outside counsel,” he wrote in a statement to Newsday.
“Nassau County is no longer the legal pushover it was prior to my election,” Blakeman wrote, adding that the county has gotten “stellar results” in court thanks to its private lawyers, saving Nassau $400 million in financial liability from lawsuits.
$2,395 per hour
Nassau County awarded $1.5 million to Sullivan & Cromwell — the behemoth firm President Donald Trump hired to fight his hush money case — to defend itself in a 2023 federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Long Beach man accused of trafficking stolen catalytic converters. The man sued the county, and Blakeman individually, for seizing $7.5 million in assets and robbing him of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in future earnings.
The county also turned to Sullivan & Cromwell when Hofstra University sued Nassau in a battle over the Coliseum property Blakeman sought to use for a casino, hiring the firm for $2.5 million. The firm’s partner rates run as high as $2,395 per hour, according to contracts obtained by Newsday.
Nassau County awarded $2.3 million to Greenberg Traurig — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s ex-law firm, and one of the nation’s largest — which Trump’s political operation “Save America” hired to work on several of the president’s criminal cases. The firm is representing Nassau County in an ongoing class action lawsuit alleging the Nassau Police Department racially discriminates against applicants in its hiring process.
Over the past two years, Nassau County has awarded $4 million to Sullivan & Cromwell, more than $4 million to Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, $2.6 million to the Law Office of Vincent D. McNamara, $2.6 million to Greenberg Traurig and $1.5 million to Bee Ready Fishbein Hatter & Donovan.
Suffolk County, in comparison, has budgeted about $3 million annually for outside firms. Hiring private lawyers cost taxpayers nearly $15 per resident in Nassau last year, compared with $2 in Suffolk.
Several of the firms that did work for Nassau County have donated thousands to the county GOP and Blakeman since he ran for county executive. Longtime Nassau GOP leader Peter Bee and his firm Bee Ready Fishbein Hatter & Donovan have donated $10,600 to Blakeman and more than $85,000 to the Nassau County Republican Committee since 2021. Jaspan Schlesinger Narendran, another firm contracted by the county, donated more than $16,000 to the committee during the same time frame.
Much of Nassau County’s spending on private firms is under contracts that predate Blakeman’s time — such as defending a 2018 lawsuit from a Freeport man who was imprisoned for more than 23 years on a murder conviction that was eventually vacated.
But Blakeman initiated others, such as when he sued Gov. Kathy Hochul for moving local elections to even-numbered years.
“Bruce Blakeman has turned Nassau County into an all-you-can-eat buffet for politically connected law firms — serving up million-dollar contracts at taxpayers’ expense,” Nassau County Legis. Seth Koslow wrote in a statement to Newsday.
“He lines the pockets of lawyers who just happen to pad his campaign war chest,” said Koslow, who is running for county executive.
No competition
Many of the contracts are “sole source,” meaning officials choose a firm without going through a competitive bidding process required by county policy. Counties and cities can bypass the bidding process during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic to secure urgent goods and services. In many cases, Nassau said it needed unique expertise.
Nassau County says its own policy and state law require a competitive bidding process that ensures contracts are given at a low cost to “qualified vendors with the integrity to warrant the award of public tax dollars.” It’s a policy that warns against sole source contracts, which it says “may subject the County to the demands of the vendor” and leave Nassau with “little leverage to obtain the best possible pricing.”
In the 2023 Hofstra lawsuit, the county hired Sullivan & Cromwell for $2.5 million as a sole source vendor, saying it “reviewed the existing special counsel panel for firms with relevant expertise in high profile litigation and was unable to find one.”
Thad Calebrese, a professor of public and nonprofit management at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, said that sometimes happens.
“There’s probably a kernel of truth in there,” Calabrese said. “But the question is: Are they using that as an excuse to effectively outsource the legal services of the county?”
While the county’s spending on private lawyers has tripled under Blakeman, its own legal staff — paid between $94,000 and $187,700 a year — is shrinking. When Blakeman took office in 2022, the county had 69 attorneys, ranging in experience from deputy county attorneys, special investigators and assistant attorneys. Last year, that number dropped to 61 attorneys.
But Calabrese said the 13% drop in headcount doesn’t justify a 200% increase in spending on private lawyers.
The Nassau Interim Finance Authority is auditing the county’s spending on private law firms. The watchdog group kicked off the audit in a meeting last week and expects to receive findings in six months.
Calabrese questioned what is driving the increase. “I would want to know what justifies that spending increase,” he said. “Whatever it is, is this the best use of your limited public funds?”
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