Part 18B Attorney Files Antitrust Complaint Against City of New York

Submitted by: Anonymous, Assigned 18B Counsel, New York City.

NY County Defenders, Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn, Defender services, queens law associates (collectively know as “RFPs”) and the city of new York seek to establish lower then market rates for legal services to the public, increase per attorney volume of cases assigned to RFP’s, and the elimination of existing competition from private legal practitioners.

The city of New York has entered into a collusive agreement to price fix and monopolize legal services available to the public. As of January 1, 2010, there were approximately 1,100 individual attorneys in private practice servicing the indigent population of the city of NY, as “court appointed attorneys” under art, 18-B of the county law.

The present fiscal 2011 budget for indigent defense providers provides the following allocation:

                                                    FY 2010               FY 2011

18-B Assigned counsel            $71,038 mil              $71,038 mil

Legal Aid                                   $87,185 mil              $71,959 mil

In 2004 in response to an acknowledged need to increase the quality of legal representation to the indigent for one of the lowest paid legal service assigned fees in the nation, the contracted hourly rate for 18-B attorneys was raised from $40. per hour to $60. For misdemeanors, and $75. for felonies.

Shortly thereafter, the bulk of indigent assignment was given to the legal aid society and 18-B court appointed attorneys were limited to assignment of only those cases where there was a conflict in representation, such as legal aid representing one of multiple codefendants and cases with life sentence exposure. This drastically reduced the number of cases assigned to 18N attorneys.

The 2009 budget called for a cap for the legal aid society to reduce its then current volume of 592 cases per attorney, with a goal of eventually reaching a more manageable caseload of 70 cases per attorney per year.

Under current proposals to take effect I 2011, one mechanism that has been put in place to achieve those goal is to outsource all conflict cases to the RFPs.

As a direct result, most of the 18-b attorneys will lose their already limited government contract assignments. They wok without union benefits, medical coverage, or labor law protections as independent contractors while providing identical legal services as those provided by The Legal Aid Society. With the agreement between the City of New your and the RFP’s, the 18 B attorneys will be forced to offset the economic loss by increasing fees to other clients, seek employment with RPFs (as the RFPS already look to the distressed 18B attorneys as the main source of their recruitment), or the 18B attorneys will be forced out of business trying to compete with a government subsidized legal services provider.

In addition to the unemployment that will beset the attorneys, loss of clientele will result in the termination of office staff, and the lack of collateral work of other contracted services, including independent investigators, firearms, ballistic, psychiatric, and other experts, most of whom are private practitioners and some of whom are located outside of the state of NY, thus a direct impact
on interstate commerce.

Starting a new RFP can only be achieved by successfully being awarded a contract to provide services with a lower fixed salary rate per attorney with a higher volume of cases per attorney, even though it has been conclusively demonstrated that prior to 2004, the cost of maintaining and office even without the overhead of administrative staff, low payment of overburdened independent contractors, resulted in inadequate representation. It was judicially determined to be in conflict with the court’s obligation to provide reasonable experienced legal service, with the contract rate of $40. Per hour, then among the lowest rates in the country.

By reducing the 18B assignments by approximately one-half, The City of NY and the RFP’s establish and maintain monopolistic dominance and control of the NYC legal services market, providing legal services to the indigent below reasonable market rates.

Forty-four thousand (44,000) cases were handled by 18B last year. The new structure will increase the assignments to RFPs as Follows:

Queens Law Assoc.         10,000

Bronx Services                  15,000

Brooklyn Defenders       20,000

The City of NY will increase the caseload of the RFP’s by 45,000 with a 20,000 case reduction by Legal Ai, therefore 25,000 cases will have to come from the 18B caseload reducing their assignments by over 50%. Thus the growth of the RPFs will be based on the acquisition and maintenance of monopolistic power and not upon superior product, business acumen or historic accident.

 

Today’s busin…

Today’s business environment is one of the toughest in the country’s history. Companies have gone under, an alarming number of people have lost their jobs, and there are few new jobs to replace those that have disappeared. But if there has been a bright spot to the country’s economic woes, it’s the entrepreneurial spirit that has gripped many of those out of work. As a result, there is a tremendous crop of startups, consultants and entrepreneurs working hard to get their own businesses off the ground.

In this new business landscape, few of those entrepreneurs can afford much more than a home office. Not quite the ideal place for meeting with clients. That’s where YourWallStreetOffice comes in.

YWSO virtual office services offer today’s entrepreneur on the run all the benefits of an office without being tied down to an expensive location. YWSO can give them an NYC virtual office, complete with a private (212) phone number and a Wall Street address. That downtown New York address can lend a layer of professionalism to a business and mean the difference between landing that important client or watching them move on to the competition.

With the help of having a virtual service, a new and established business is freed up to focus on their main objective of growing their organization without being hamstrung by burdensome infrastructure costs.

YWSO also complements that virtual office space with real space conference rooms that give its clients a place to host meetings and other gatherings, equipped with 50” Flat screen TV’s, wi-fi/high speed internet, audio/video presentation, catering services and whiteboard. 

One group that has taken advantage of YWSO’s Wall Street meeting rooms is the Black Ivy Alumni League. Cathedral Consulting and YWSO recently teamed up to sponsor the League’s first networking gathering of the year.

The meeting rooms provided the group with an intimate, business-like setting located in the center of the financial world, carrying all the prestige and cachet that an office on Wall Street has to offer.

On Jan. 12, the League brought together a small group of alumni from Ivy League colleges at YWSO’s 110 Wall Street facility for its “Rising Ivy” breakfast, giving attendees a forum to introduce themselves and their businesses to their peers.

The breakfast allowed those gathered — about 20 alums from the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Princeton University and Yale University — to leverage their contacts to grow their businesses.

The breakfast was the first in a series of monthly Black Ivy League Alumni events that Cathedral Consulting will hold at YWSO’s facility. The next one is set for Feb. 9.

YWSO prides itself in being a small “boutique-like” service provider, which allows it to keep its prices competitive and attractive to clients like the League. And low costs are key to catching and keeping any business in this challenged economy.

 

NYC Law Symposium

On November 10, 2011, YWSO is going to be attending the New York City Bar will host its 8th Annual Law Practice Management Symposium for solos and small firms. It is entitled ” Small Firm Startup and The Art of Thriving in Tumultuous Times”. Its focus is on how solo and small firm practitioners can start up, maintain and grow their firms most efficiently during a tough economic climate.

The Symposium will be held at the House of the Association at 42 West 44th Street, NY NY. It will last from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. The workshops, which will be divided into two tracks, will include information on office space, entity choice, tech support, equipment, marketing and networking “on and offline” and finance. There will be workshops on Retainer and Escrow Accounts, Attorney Engagement and Non-Engagement letters, Cost-Effective Legal Research Options and a roundtable discussion on Billing Practices. In addition to attending the sessions aspiring solos and small firm owners can discuss their office needs with vendors who cater to small law firms, and brainstorm with experienced solo practitioners in our “Seasoned Solo” Drop-In Center.

YWSO is going to be one of the vendors at the law symposium and are very excited to be a part of this great event. We’ll keep you posted on when the event happens and have many new things to share!

If you want to register for the Symposium you can check our their website

Please help spread the word!

 

IT’S TIME FOR OCCUPY WALL STREET TO MOVE ON

Okay, Occupy Wall Street made their impact on “their” street.  The/Their cause is certainly justified but the reality is the Problem resides in the Nations Capitol, Washington, D.C.  If the “crowd” doesn’t move to where the evil lives the movement will lose their relevancy for the “real” address that they should “shut down” is located at our Nations seat of government.  Wall Street just happens to be the recipient, the beneficiary of laws, regulations and rules that favor the “bankers” to run amok and ruin the lives of tens of millions of citizens; tax paying citizens.

Occupy Wall Street should become the lobbyist for the legitimate jobless, the owners of the houses that are being foreclosed on, the old and the indigent whose life savings have been radically reduced in value thus threatening their sunset years, the students who have borrowed to the hilt to be educated so they may become tax payers and have no chance of finding employment that will enable them to pay back their loans.  You get the picture?

What is happening is criminal and no one is going to jail.  The arm twisting of our Senators and Representatives by fat cat lobbyists is not only criminal but immoral.  “You scratch my back theory not only goes on during the good times but the disaster that followed the borrowing and lending schemes devised by all ready rich and greedy business people who only care for their egos and bank accounts that most likely don’t exist in the Country where they operate their schemes.

What is our government questioning?  Why isn’t our government bailing out hard working people, self employed individuals who have invested in themselves and can’t find a bank to take a “risk” on them.  Do you realize how foolish, how crazy our countries situation is.   You can’t make it up.  If someone who is involved in the scandals has any real answers that makes sense please stand up, speak up.

 

How YWSO Developed & Changed

“The Phone Answering Machine Will Put Answering Services out Of Business”

Do you remember that statement? I do……..it was in the 60’s when answering machines became available for the mass market. It wasn’t called Voice Mail.

In 1986 Your Wall Street Office (YWSO) was founded just about the time when Facsimile technology was becoming popular. It wasn’t called e-mail.

YWSO known then as Service Resource Industries was an independent Executive Suite providing mail receiving, telephone answering and business support services. It wasn’t called Virtual Office Service..

Our industry now known as Office Business Center’s is still very similar……..with one exception……..Technology.

YWSO has embraced technology that would assist our customer’s effectiveness, growth and ultimate success.

In 1987 I sat down with a computer programmer discussing YWSO’s diverse client base, their needs and our accountability so he could write programs to help manage the variety of services that YWSO offered on a day to day basis for all its customers. That was twenty four years ago. It was exciting to be introduced to software and the hardware to operate it. It took seven months to get the basic client management system up & running and another 2-3 months to massage certain procedures and write enhancements. We still are.

Since that time so many business protocols and procedures have been dramatically altered. From the way that we dress, communicate and the space we work in Phone telephony, cell phones with e-mail, text and twitter. Video conferencing has expanded the word “Virtual Office”.

Could you have imagined having an office on Wall Street, have no rent, support professionals answering your phone on a personal level, providing administrative services, and greeting “Your” guests at Your Wall Street Office and have no payroll. The availability of immediate information when you’re on the run and not own any equipment to facilitate same, except a cell phone.

With one exception; PERSONAL SERVICE. Technology is great but people are greater. That’s where YWSO shines. It is said that YWSO “talks with a smile” and has entrepreneurship as its guiding light.

YWSO offers a “place” to get out of the rain and hang up your coat. So if you want get a more information for virtual office address at Wall Street, NYC then Call us at 800.205.7685 or email at info@yourwallstreetoffice.com