You Don’t Have to Settle
Every summer, I like to review all of my cases from the past school year. Invariably, it seems that the cases that take the longest are cases that got held up in a settlement.
Most of these settlements occur because, for one reason or another, the parent didn't want to litigate and we figured the city wouldn’t want to, either. As a matter of fact, a strong case may actually be more likely to become a straggler. When the facts would seem to speak for themselves, some clients would just as soon sit back and let the Department of Education’s (“DOE”) settlement investigation run its course. While a good lawyer will always present her clients with a range of options, this is ultimately the clients’ prerogative. Unfortunately, there will always be instances where the City does not prioritize a case as much as it may deserve.
To understand why, it’s important to understand how the DOE operates. Generally speaking, when a new case is filed, the DOE assigns it to two different attorneys. One of them investigates the parents’ allegations and, if the case is sufficiently clear cut, offers to negotiate a settlement. This process can take months, during which time a second attorney will handle the numerous appearances and status conferences, updating the impartial hearing officer and the parents’ attorney on the settlement investigation and, if necessary, litigating the case at a hearing on the merits. I should note that sometimes the same person will fill both roles. Indeed, it seems that at the DOE, extreme multitasking is the norm, as an anonymous source recently explained to me (I’m paraphrasing here):
I've got 900 cases this year, and that's not even including the cases that I am ostensibly assigned to, but which are actually being investigated by new employees at the Department of Ed, whose names we haven't even made public because we want them to actually be able to focus on what they're doing and not have to field angry phone calls from parent attorneys all the time.
I asked another anonymous source involved in the settlement process about his caseload. He reports every morning to the Impartial Hearing Office in Downtown Brooklyn, even though his actual office is almost an hour away. If he wants to check his emails, then he has to either do it before commuting to Brooklyn or after his last hearing of the day; DOE personnel are not typically granted remote access to their files. On the day that we spoke, he and his colleagues were scheduled for 30 appearances between the four of them.
I found myself asking, "If I were a parent, what would I rather do? Would I rather work with the guy who has 900 cases to his name, and whose email address is basically a front for four other people — or against him?"
Would I rather work with a guy who's insanely busy or work against him? The mere fact that he has to take a 45-minute subway ride to get from one office to another eats up a large amount of morale, energy, and attention.
A lot of the other firms in our area discourage their clients from litigating. Often, that’s because these firms have been around a lot longer, during which time they form relationships with the DOE and its personnel. They're comfortable, and they know that they're always going to have enough clients to make ends meet. But that doesn't mean that a client should allow themselves to be talked out of an aggressive stance. At the law office of Gottlieb & Gottlieb, you can be sure that we'll be aggressive on your behalf.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506