Thread by @DoBetterFCPS

Good morning and Happy Sunday! We have updated our @fcpsnews Spending Tracker on the @DoBetterFCPS website. The difference between our tracker and the one put out by the School is that you can sort our by year, dollar amount, office department and vendor. dobetterfcps.com/fcps-spending

💰💰💰 FCPS SPENDING UPDATE: Would you like to hear a list of legal firms that were paid by the Office of the Superintendent this fiscal year? Let us begin! From the top, shall we? #transparency #accountability

Law Firm #1: @HuntonAK. At $1,088,042 this year alone and $10.7M since 2013, Hunton Andrews Kurth has always been the @FCPSSupt Office's go to law firm. However, an average expenditure of $400k per year jumped to several million per year as soon as Brabrand took over.

Law Firm #2: At $872,859 is Fairfax-based @BKLawVA. Blankingship & Keith, P.C. is commonly know as the law firm used to fight special e cases but a recent shake up in staffing there puts that relationship in question. In each of the previous 3 years, bill here was around $1.4M/yr

Law Firm #3: Sands Anderson PC has been paid $146,778. @SandsAnderson has too many practice areas for us to guess at what they were hired for, but please let it be cyber security. 🙏 They were paid $173,654 in 2020 but only $7k in 2019.

Law Firm #4: Private attorney Michael E Kinney PLC comes in at $146,497. According to his LinkedIn Profile, he is a litigator in VA and FL. This is the first year he has appear on FCPS payments systems.

Law Firm #5: Jackson Lewis PC has been paid $36,888 so far this year but was paid $139,259 last year. Among @JacksonLewisPC practice areas are affirmative action, cyber security, and labor relations.

Law Firm #6: While not a law firm, we are going to go ahead & list FTI Consulting at $25,870 in this list. @FTIConsulting often comes along side law firms to help with crisis communications and to "mitigate risk and resolve disputes," according to their own bio. $96k last year.

Law Firm #7: Bancroft Mcgavin Horvath are civil defense litigators, trial attorneys. Let's not pretend what these are for. These "oh oh just in case" lawyers were paid $13,527, $16,958, $13,130 the last three years 2021, 2020, 2019 respectively.

Law Firm #8: Covington & Burling LLP has 1,200 lawyers across the globe, there is no way to know which practice area FCPS has hired them for per se. This is the first year on the @fcspsupt payroll for @CovingtonLLP however. They have billed $10,001 so far. One to watch.

Law Firm #9: The McCammon Group Ltd is a dispute and mediation firm. So, we guess you can saw this is a non-law firm in an attempt to avoid court firm. They were paid $4,986 and similarly small fees in 2018 and 2014.

Law Firm #10: John V Robinson PC is a Richmond law firm that was paid $4,600. Notably, this firm was paid $41,652 in 2018.

Law Firm #11: Wehner & York PC is the law firm of Michael York, a Reston-based litigator. While only billing $4,350 so far this year, he billed $53,450 last year.

Law Firm #12: (You think we're just pulling your leg at this point, but we are not)

Law Firm #12: The big kahuna Holland & Knights LLP comes in late in the list with only $3,473 in 2021 billable hours. @Holland_Knight only billed $14,680 last year, so we assume they are used for only minor work.

Law Firm Lucky #13: Cucinelli Geiger PC, @cgpcfirm, is an odd one as they list their practice areas as "Estate Planning, Elder Law, and Special Needs Planning." They billed $1,050 and 2021 is the first time they've appeared on the record.

Bonus #14: @FCPSSupt makes use of the services of @barbhuntercomm, who specifically counsels school leaders to "create positive relationships between your school district and your community, families, and employees." You might want to ask for your $1,200 back.

@threadreaderapp unroll please 🙏