Legal Fees
On January 5, 2023, a new majority took over the RIH BOE.
Judy Sullivan of Oakland was elected President, and Kim Ansh of Franklin Lakes as VP.
Amongst other actions taken at the Reorganization meeting on Jan 5, a majority of five board members (Sullivan, Ansh, Bogdansky, Emmolo and Mariani) voted to terminate the board's long time legal counsel, Fogarty and Hara.
Ms. Sullivan stated that the vote to remove the legal counsel was for ‘fiscal responsibility’.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here is how that worked out for the taxpayers and students. Legal fees for the Ramapo Indian Hills Board of Education skyrocketed, pulling resources away from students. An analysis of district legal expenses since 2017 shows a drastic spike in 2023 and 2024.
Why?
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The new law firm has higher hourly rates than the previous one
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The Board president’s legal spending exploded, while temporarily restricting the superintendent’s direct access to legal counsel and reducing fellow board members' access
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The Board outsourced OPRA (“Open Public Records Act”) processing—a function previously handled in-house—driving up costs
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Board dysfunction led to costly mistakes and unnecessary legal battles including three tries to hire a permanent superintendent (3 negotiated contracts and a separation agreement), numerous employee grievances and several ethics complaints​
Taxpayers deserve accountability. The board must restore fiscal responsibility.
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Read the full breakdown of the invoices for yourself in the links below.
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Since launching RIH Board Watch in January 2023, I have said this again and again:
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WE HAVE GREAT SCHOOLS.
WE HAVE GREAT TEACHERS.
WE HAVE GREAT ADMINISTRATORS AND STAFF.
The Board should be investing in classrooms, teachers, and student programs—not in creating chaos and racking up legal costs.
Hold your Board of Education members accountable!
Developments on Legal Fee Transparency - Expanded Analysis
At the Board's February 10th meeting, Board President Audrey Souders opening statement addressed the current Board’s commitment to transparency. “Transparency builds trust” she said. She went on to state that the Board reviewed the OPRA log and concluded that the most requested items were legal invoices, so the board decided to publish those going forward, together with a pie chart showing how the legal expenses are distributed.
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Subsequently, the OPRA logs, legal expense pie charts and redacted legal invoices from July 1, 2023 onward were published to the district's website at https://www.rih.org/departments/business-office/audits-financial/legal-fees#fs-panel-10011.
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At the Board's March 3rd meeting, Ms. Souders stated that the district now has a ‘huge conflict’ with its general counsel, the Porzio, Bromberg & Newman P.C., due to a legal complaint against the district that Porzio is also representing. Per Ms. Souders: "Over the past several weeks since the district decided to publish the legal invoices, we have gotten some feedback from individuals of the public and the particular person and our board counsel and representing us has proven to be a huge conflict for our counsel, the Porzio firm, because she's also representing this person from a complaint filed against the board.” She also stated, "this situation forced us to have to put an item on the agenda tonight because we need to hire board counsel immediately to address the potential legal suit that's going to be filed against the district, we have no one to discuss this with, so that's why we have on the agenda the Giacobbe firm."
The Board voted to appoint Cleary Giacobbe Alfieri Jacobs LLC as “Special Counsel”. This motion was passed unanimously. In addition, Tom Bogdansky made a walk-in motion to go out to RFP (request for proposals) for NEW legal counsel. The motion to seek new legal counsel passed 5-3, with Souders, Bogdansky, DeLaite, Kinney, and Koulikourdis voting yes, while Ansh, Mariani, and Valenti opposed. Melissa Kiel was absent.
The Board did not vote to terminate Porzio as its general counsel. However, Ms. Koulikourdis said: “It is time not only to reign in legal expenses but to ensure that the next firm representing this board has a strong record of responsibility and public use of funds while providing objective guidance to the board and administration.”
After the Board's March 3rd meeting, the district removed the OPRA logs, legal fee reports, and legal invoices from its website. The Board claimed it was improving transparency by publishing legal invoices and OPRA logs, only to take them down weeks later without much explanation other than it was on the advice of legal counsel. If transparency builds trust, what does this reversal accomplish?
The public deserves to know which former board member allegedly threatened legal action against the district and why the board responded by removing legal invoices and OPRA logs that had already been made public. Based on my review of redacted legal invoices from 2021 to 2024, the parties to legal matters are not redacted unless they involve student issues.
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Given these developments, below are additional charts and graphs I have based on the 2021 to 2024 redacted invoices.
As you will see, the data is clear—the biggest drivers of the explosion in legal fees include:
• The board outsourcing OPRA processing, a function previously handled in-house.
• Inefficient labor negotiations, including a one-year contract that required two negotiations in two years.
• Union grievances and unfair labor practices ("ULP"), which increased sharply in 2023 and 2024.
• A surge in ethics complaints, which spiked significantly in 2022.
• Multiple litigation matters, unrelated to student issues.
One of the most alarming trends is the dramatic increase in the board president’s use of legal counsel:
• 2021: The Board President or VP referenced in billing entries on legal invoices 64 times
• 2022: 25 times
• 2023: 490 times
• 2024: 135 times
This level of legal consultation by the Board Leadership represents a staggering shift in the use of taxpayer-funded legal services and raises serious concerns.
Links to Invoice Lists:
All invoices were provided by the district through the proper OPRA request process and redacted by the district before release, ensuring compliance with legal and privacy requirements. These invoices reflect a significant increase in legal spending due to board leadership’s decisions. Readers can see the trends for themselves, and key patterns are summarized in the chart. This is not about speculation or political spin. These are the actual invoices and numbers provided by the district.