Solana Beach School District
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal Decision Feb. 2012
The Ninth Circuit Court wondered why a school district (Solana Beach) would pay
Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm $67,000 in order to avoid paying $6,000
or
$7,000 for a little autistic girl's education.  (This money was not for babysitting; the little
girl made remarkable strides in socialization and academics.  How much is that worth?)

One justice had the following discussion with
Jack Sleeth.  You can listen to the exchange
HERE.
Solana Beach School District loses case--but lawyers collect
attorney fees
Ka.D., a minor v. Solana Beach School District
School board members pay large amounts of tax dollars to school attorneys.  In this
case,
one of the board members, Art Palkowitz,  got a job at the school district's
law firm,
Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz.  The board voted to take the case all the way
to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, even though the firm had lost in the District Court.  
One justice noted,
"Nobody in their right economic mind" would do this.
Justice: "I am curious.  This whole dispute is about
counsel [attorney] fees, I assume.

"Nobody in their right economic mind would be
carrying this case to the Ninth Circuit
that seems to
me to involve something like $67,000....

"What's really at stake here in terms of the lawsuit
itself is whether you should reimburse somewhere
between 6 and 7 thousand dollars [to the parents].  

"For this amount of money you've gone through a
hearing before a hearing officer, a proceeding in the
District Court, and now you're appealing to the Ninth
Circuit.  

"It seems to me, and I don't blame you necessarily, I
just want to be clear.  This whole dispute is about
counsel fees, isn't it?"

Jack Sleeth:  "No."

Justice:  "No?"
OCTOBER 04, 2011
Solana Beach school
board member
working for Stutz
Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz education
law firm

By Marsha Sutton
Del Mar Times

Solana Beach School District board member and attorney Art Palkowitz is providing
general legal advice to school districts as Senior Counsel at Stutz Artiano Shinoff &
Holtz, a San Diego County law firm specializing in education law.

Formerly Assistant General Counsel at San Diego Unified School District where he
worked for nine years, Palkowitz joined Stutz Artiano in March 2010.

Palkowitz, whose second four-year term on the SBSD school board expires in
November 2012, has been a practicing attorney for over 28 years, with background
in public education and civil litigation.

Since Palkowitz joined Stutz Artiano, the Solana Beach School District has continued
to have the law firm represent the district on two cases. SBSD superintendent
Leslie
Fausset
said there is no conflict of interest.

“Art has nothing to do with any of the cases that the firm represents,” she said.

Also, she said he recuses himself from voting on all decisions involving Stutz Artiano
cases that involve expenses with the firm.  

[Ashly McGlone noted that Mr. Palkowitz participates in discussions before the
vote is taken.]

“We’ve taken probably a more cautious approach, but that’s how we’ve handled it,”
Fausset said.

She said Palkowitz shared with her his intent to join the law firm in advance, and she
said she had “no misgivings at all.”

“We took all of the appropriate precautions,” she said, adding that “it’s very beneficial
to a district” to have attorneys on school boards who understand education issues.

One of the two cases Stutz Artiano has handled for the SBSD since Palkowitz was
hired began in September 2010 and was concluded earlier this year. The district paid
about $6,300 to the law firm for the case.

The other case, concerning a preschool special education student [Ka.D.], is
continuing through the court system and is on appeal at the Ninth Circuit, Fausset
said. To date, the district has paid Stutz Artiano about $11,600, and the Special
Education Legal Alliance has paid the firm about $40,000 on this case.

With miscellaneous fees of $823 for opinions on Public Records Act requests and
student fees, the total paid to Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz by the district from 2010 to
the present is about $18,745.




Solana Beach School District special education
preschool case goes to Court of Appeals

[See more about Joe Schwartzburg and the North County Special Education
Legal Alliance
HERE.  

Also, the correct name for the organization that channels money to education
lawyers is NCCSE, as described on Solana Beach School District's
website on
May 6, 2012:]

The North Coastal Consortium for Special Education (NCCSE) is a Special Education Local
Planning Area (SELPA) comprised of fourteen local school districts including the Solana Beach
School District. For more information, you may call (760) 761-5110, or click on the website: www.
nccse.org.

Del Mar Times
Oct. 4, 2011

A legal case involving a Solana Beach School District special education preschool
student, begun in August 2010, is now with the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit. The case is being handled by Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz lawyer
Dan Shinoff.

The case has been paid in large part by the
Special Education Legal Alliance,
formed seven or eight years ago to support potentially precedent-setting cases
where the outcome could impact other districts and other cases, said SBSD
superintendent Leslie Fausset.

“What happens in so many of these cases is that even if you are right, you have a
tendency to settle because it’s often less expensive to settle than it is to go through
the full court process,” Fausset said.

She said there is a tendency for districts to settle even when they may not agree
because “it is expeditious to do so financially for the district.”

The purpose of the alliance, she said, was for school districts to contribute to a fund
to provide resources that would support districts “when they were in the midst of a
case that potentially was precedent-setting.”

“Laws get written, and there’s a lot of interpretation with any written law,” Fausset
said. “When you settle, you don’t have the opportunity of getting full, clear definition
of the intent of the law.”

The Special Education Legal Alliance provides a way for districts to pursue a case
through the courts to receive more comprehensive interpretation of the law. “The lack
of definition is not helpful,” she said.

The alliance is county-run, Fausset said, and is voluntary for districts. She said her
district makes an annual contribution of about $.50 per student, for a projected cost
for 2011-2012 of approximately $1,418.50.

“I’ve been very supportive of it,” Fausset said of the legal alliance.

The case to date has cost about $51,650 — about $11,600 from the district and
about $40,000 from the legal alliance.
Board of Education
Minutes of Special
Board Meeting

December 11, 2008

re case of Ka.D. v. Solana
Beach School District

Motion to Adjourn into Closed
Session
at 6:08 p.m.

CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL
COUNSEL – PENDING
LITIGATION Subdivision (a) of
Government Code Section
§54956.9

Name of Case: Ka.D. v. Solana
Beach School District, et. al.
U.S. District Court Case No. 08
CV 0622 JLS POR

In Attendance:

Leslie Fausset, Superintendent

Mary Ellen Nest, Director of
Pupil Services

Jonathan Read, District
Counsel -
Fagan, Friedman,
Fulfrost

Dan Shinoff, District
Counsel -
Stutz, Artiano,
Shinoff & Holtz

Motion Busby
Second Schade
Unanimous
The decision said: "We agree with the ALJ’s determination that the District’s general
education class was an inappropriate education setting for the Student, and
therefore, the District’s offer substantively failed to provide a FAPE.
Art Palkowitz, board member
with job at district's law firm
San Diego Education Report
SDER
San Diego
Education Report
SDER
SDER
SDER
< < <
UT-San Diego's
Ashly McGlone
did a
much
harder hitting
piece on this
story.
Southern District of California
San Diego
Calendar of the United States
District Court
Hon. William V. Gallo

Thursday, 6/21/2012
Courtroom F - First Floor
Honorable: William V.
Gallo           Magistrate Judge
Deputy Clerk:  
Jennifer Yahl            
Court Reporter/ECR:  N/A
Thursday,
06/21/2012 08:30AM
Status Conference

Ka.D. et al v. Solana Beach
School District et al

Plaintiff attorney:
Maureen R Graves  
(949)856-0128

Defendant attorneys:
Jennifer S. Creighton  
(760)758-4261
Daniel R Shinoff  
(619)232-3122
Jack M Sleeth Jr  
(619)232-3122
Art Palkowitz's disclosure forms
failing to note Stutz salary

Amendment to disclosure form,
acknowledging Stutz salary


Solana school district
legal summary and
contracts
< < <
The presiding justice of the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals would
beg to differ with Leslie Fausset.  
He thinks that no one in their
right economic mind would have
appealed the Ka.D. case to the
Ninth Circuit.  He seems to think it
was appealed only so that Stutz
law firm could get more attorney
fees (see transcript above).
Update March 29, 2013: Ka.D.'s mother writes:

"Our [case] is still out there--after the denial by the US Supreme
Court
they are fighting over fees owed to our attorney....while
racking up more fees for themselves..."

Kyla Doyle
The Tyranny of
the Billable Hour
By STEVEN J. HARPER
New York Times
March 28, 2013


“THAT bill shall know
no limits,” wrote one
DLA Piper lawyer to
another in 2010 in what
the firm is now calling
“unfortunate banter”
between associates
about work for a client.
But what is truly
unfortunate is the
underlying billable-hour
regime and the law-firm
culture it has spawned.

Lost in the furor
surrounding one large
firm’s current public
relations headache are
deeper problems that
go to the heart of the
prevailing big law-firm
business model itself.
Regrettably, as with
previous episodes that
have produced high-
profile scandals, the
present outcry will
probably pass and the
billable hour will endure.

It shouldn’t. The
billable-hour system is
the way most lawyers in
big firms charge clients,
but it serves no one.
Well, almost no one. It
brings most equity
partners in those firms
great wealth. Law firm
leaders call it a
leveraged pyramid.
Most associates call it a
living hell.

In a typical large firm,
associates earn far
less than the client
revenues they
generate. For example,
a client receives an
invoice totaling the
number of hours each
lawyer spends on the
client’s matters,
multiplied by the lawyer’
s hourly rate, say $400
for a junior associate.
Most big firms require
associates to bill at
least 1,900 hours a
year, according to a
survey last year by
NALP, the Association
for Legal Career
Professionals.

In 2009, DLA Piper
announced that it had
eliminated associates’
billable-hour
requirements in favor of
a performance-based
reward system. However,
the firm’s submission for
the association’s current
NALP Directory of Legal
Employers reports that it
has a “minimum billable
hour expectation.” In
2011, DLA Piper’s
“average annual
associate hours worked”
(both billable and
nonbillable) was 2,462;
the billable average was
1,831.

At $400 an hour, a
hypothetical 2,000-
hour-a-year associate
generates $800,000 a
year for the firm. But
the firm typically pays
the salaried lawyer one-
fourth of that amount or
less.

For associates, the
goal is simple: meet the
required (or expected)
minimum number of
billable hours to qualify
for annual bonuses
and salary increases.
Billing 2,000 hours a
year isn’t easy. It
typically takes at least
50 hours a week to bill
an honest 40 hours to
a client. Add
commuting time,
bathroom breaks,
lunch, holidays, an
annual vacation and a
little socializing, and
most associates find
themselves working
evenings and
weekends to “make
their hours.” Most firms
increase financial
rewards as an
associate’s billables
move beyond the
stated threshold.

For partners, billable
hours are a key
measure of associate
and partner productivity.
More is better. The
resulting culture pushes
everyone harder.
Meanwhile, each partner
strives to maximize
individual client billings
that he or she controls.
Those billings in most
cases determine a
partner’s annual share
of the firm’s profits.
Their clients also
become tickets to other
firms. That makes
partners reluctant to
share too many
important client
responsibilities with their
associates and fellow
partners.

For clients, the
consequences of the
billable-hour system
can be absurd. Fatigue
through overwork can
produce negative
returns — the critical
document missed
during a late-night
marathon review; the
error in the draft of a
corporate filing that
goes unnoticed.

Why do clients tolerate
this perverse system?
Periodically they rebel,
especially during
economic downturns,
but those revolutions
have been short-lived
and unsuccessful. A
2011 survey by ALM
Legal Intelligence, an
online data service,
found that alternative
fee arrangements
accounted for only 16
percent of revenues at
the nation’s largest law
firms in 2010. Despite
outcries for reform, the
billable hour remains
entrenched and the
barriers to change are
formidable. In many
practice areas,
including large and
lucrative bankruptcy
cases, prior court
rulings (including the
United States Supreme
Court’s 2010 opinion in
Perdue v. Kenny A.)
essentially require
lawyers to use the
billable-hour approach
if they want to assure
approval of their fee
petitions.

There’s a way out of the
mess. But it requires
clients to press harder
for alternative fee
arrangements, courts to
back away from policies
that embed the billable
hour, law firm leaders to
stop rewarding excessive
associate hours and
senior partners to
consider the deleterious
consequences of their
myopic focus on short-
term profit-maximizing
behavior.

However it comes out,
DLA Piper isn’t the first
law firm to endure a
client billing
controversy. While at a
big firm, Webster
Hubbell, a former
Arkansas Supreme
Court justice and
associate attorney
general for President
Bill Clinton, was caught
billing clients for time
that he never worked.
He went to prison. A
partner in a prominent
Chicago law firm got
into trouble when
someone wondered
how he could bill almost
6,000 hours annually
over four consecutive
years. He couldn’t.

In fact, a cottage industry
has now developed in
auditing outside law firm
invoices to clients. Even
so, as the deceit
associated with the
billable hour continues
undetected, equally
insidious consequences
of the entire system
endure. The episodes of
public embarrassment will
remain infrequent, and
the triggers producing
them will be idiosyncratic.
DLA Piper’s current
notoriety began when a
former client refused to
pay his roughly $675,000
bill. The firm sued him
last year, and its internal
e-mails about the matter
became subject to
discovery. Before long,
they landed on the front
page of The New York
Times.
San Diego Education
Report Blog
SITE MAP
Why This Website

Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation

LAWYERS

SDCOE

CVESD

Castle Park
Elementary School

Law Enforcement

CTA

CVE

Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz

Silence is Golden

Schools and Violence

Office Admin Hearings

Larkins OAH Hearing
HOME
It took only 88 days for Judge Lisa Guy-Schall to get rid of the
Sarquilla case.

Mother, district fight over residency
School officials say she lives elsewhere
By Bruce Lieberman
SDUT
March 30, 2008

SOLANA BEACH – Shawn Sarquilla says she just wants to send her kids to school,
and she's gone to court to force the Solana Beach School District to continue allowing
them in.

The school district, through its attorneys, says Sarquilla has failed to provide
adequate evidence that she lives within the district's boundaries.

Sarquilla says she is a single mother who shares custody of her two children with their
father, who lives in Encinitas. The district has wrongly concluded that she lives there
too, she said.

“I felt it was going to be resolved a long time ago,” Sarquilla said last week. “I never
thought it would get to the length that it has.”

On April 11, a San Diego County Superior Court judge is scheduled to hear both
sides.

The school district had been scheduled to dismiss Sarquilla's children, Kirra, 11, and
Kai, 8, from the district on March 21. But Sarquilla's attorney obtained a temporary
restraining order on Monday to keep the children in school for another 15 days.

The case pits Sarquilla against the school district, which like all public school districts
must confirm the residency of the students it enrolls.

Confirming that its students live within its boundaries is no small matter for the Solana
Beach School District.

Most school districts in California receive state funding based on the number of
students enrolled. But Solana Beach and a handful of other districts in affluent areas
of the county receive their funding from local property tax revenues.

Called “basic aid” school districts, they are funded by property taxes because those
revenues are higher than the per-pupil funding they would otherwise receive from the
state.

Because the amount of money that basic aid districts receive is unrelated to
enrollment, those districts often go to great lengths to make sure students live within
their boundaries.

In Sarquilla's case, the Solana Beach district hired a private investigator to follow the
mother and her children to try to confirm where they live.

“What this district did, as many school districts do if there is a question of residency,
is they'll use the services of a private investigator. That's not uncommon,” said Dan
Shinoff, the district's attorney.

The district has spent $1,263 since July for private investigator HSL Services to check
on student residency, said Sandy Benson, the district's chief financial officer. The
district spent $1,222 for a similar service from Chuck Hile & Associates in fiscal 2006-
07, she said.

Sarquilla said that she has lived in an apartment complex on South Nardo Avenue
continuously for the past five years but that the district doesn't believe her.

Several circumstances have complicated the situation.

First, Sarquilla said she and her ex-husband share custody of their children. The
result is that Sarquilla often drives back and forth to Encinitas and the children are
often with their father and stepmother.

Second, Sarquilla receives her mail at a post office box in Encinitas. That apparently
helped raise the district's suspicions.

In July and August, the district sent three letters to Sarquilla's apartment complex
asking for information about where she lives. The post office returned the letters.

“Of course the mail would be sent back, because I don't get my mail there,” Sarquilla
said.

At the district's request last summer, Sarquilla provided a copy of her rental
agreement and a utility bill. But the agreement covered only July 2007, and her utility
bill for that month was only $11.80.

“To me, it looks as though these folks left the district and just didn't want to say they
left the district,” Shinoff said.

The district's private investigator, meanwhile, has determined that Sarquilla and her
children do not live in the South Nardo Avenue apartment complex, Shinoff said. As
for the utility bill, Shinoff said: “She got the best deal in America.”

Sarquilla said she rents on a month-to-month basis, so the rental agreement she
provided last summer reflected that. Her utility bill – more recent ones she has
submitted are about as low – is not proof that she and her children do not live there,
she said.

“Questioning the amount of my SDG&E bill is ridiculous, and it infuriates me,”
Sarquilla said.

Sarquilla has since submitted to the district a letter from the manager of her
apartment complex, along with a ledger of rental payments that suggest that she has
paid rent there since June 2003.

Shinoff said that Sarquilla's documentation has been confusing but that the ledger
does appear to support her claim of residency.

“The payment ledger and what the resident manager has to say might . . . determine
the whole issue,” he said. “If she's living there, then she's living there, and if the kids
are living there, then they're living there.

“It shouldn't be any great issue.”



Monday, March 31, 2008
Dan Shinoff and investigators are in the news again
See MiraCosta College posts.

Attorney Dan Shinoff does not get along well with many of the mothers of children
who attend school districts that pay him for advice. His relationship with the children of
those mothers is even more disastrous.

But an article about a court case between Solana Beach School district and one such
mother caught my eye not just because of the involvement of the ubiquitous Dan
Shinoff, but because of the information about school funding.

Someone asked me recently if funding was equal for all public school children in
California. I said I thought it was, but I was wrong.

Here's what yesterday's San Diego Union Tribune article by Bruce Lieberman says:

"Called “basic aid” school districts, they are funded by property taxes because those
revenues are higher than the per-pupil funding they would otherwise receive from the
state.

"Because the amount of money that basic aid districts receive is unrelated to
enrollment, those districts often go to great lengths to make sure students live within
their boundaries.

"In Sarquilla's case, the Solana Beach district hired a private investigator to follow the
mother and her children to try to confirm where they live.

"'What this district did, as many school districts do if there is a question of residency,
is they'll use the services of a private investigator. That's not uncommon,' said Dan
Shinoff, the district's attorney...

"At the district's request last summer, Sarquilla provided a copy of her rental
agreement and a utility bill. But the agreement covered only July 2007, and her utility
bill for that month was only $11.80.

“To me, it looks as though these folks left the district and just didn't want to say they
left the district,” Shinoff said.

"The district's private investigator, meanwhile, has determined that Sarquilla and her
children do not live in the South Nardo Avenue apartment complex, Shinoff said. As
for the utility bill, Shinoff said: “She got the best deal in America.”

"Sarquilla said she rents on a month-to-month basis, so the rental agreement she
provided last summer reflected that. Her utility bill – more recent ones she has
submitted are about as low – is not proof that she and her children do not live there,
she said.

"'Questioning the amount of my SDG&E bill is ridiculous, and it infuriates me,'
Sarquilla said.

"Sarquilla has since submitted to the district a letter from the manager of her
apartment complex, along with a ledger of rental payments that suggest that she has
paid rent there since June 2003.

"Shinoff said that Sarquilla's documentation has been confusing but that the ledger
does appear to support her claim of residency.

"'The payment ledger and what the resident manager has to say might . . . determine
the whole issue,'he said. 'If she's living there, then she's living there, and if the kids
are living there, then they're living there. It shouldn't be any great issue.'"

But that doesn't mean you won't find a way to rack up lots of billable hours fighting the
parent, does it, Mr Shinoff?



Department:         N-31
    
Sarquilla, Kai
Sarquilla, Kirra
represented by Alpert, Cirrus A

Solana Beach School District
represented by Shinoff, Daniel R
    
06/20/2008
Minutes finalized for Demurrer / Motion to Strike heard 06/20/2008 01:30:00 PM.
Minute Order
    
06/10/2008
Declaration - Other (06/20/08 - supplemental declaration of Ryan L. Church) filed by
Solana Beach School District.

03/24/2008
Petition for Writ of Mandate filed by Sarquilla, Kirra; Sarquilla, Kai.
\nRefers to: Sarquilla, Shawn; Solana Beach School District
Sarquilla, Kirra (Petitioner); Sarquilla, Kai (Petitioner)
August 2014
Update on the Doyle case:  

NInth Circuit Court of Appeal orders Solana Beach School District
to pay Doyle family nearly $580,000 in attorney’s fees.