Dearest reader,
Step 4 of our Southfield Public Schools review takes us to the check register.
And one category stood out immediately.
During the 2024-25 school year, I identified $568,188.70 in payments to four law firms.
The largest recipient by a very wide margin?
The Allen Law Group PC — $393,919.20.
That's 69.3% of the identifiable law-firm payments I found in the register going to one firm.
The remaining payments were:
Clark Hill PLLC — $93,554.50
Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone — $75,000.00
Thrun Law Firm PC — $5,715.00
And when I looked a little closer at The Allen Law Group payments, some of the individual amounts caught my attention:
$71,119.20
$64,395.00
$61,382.50
$53,231.70
Those are individual payments — not annual totals.
Now, an important distinction before we go any further down this rabbit hole.
A check register tells us who was paid and how much. It does not necessarily tell us exactly what legal matter each payment covered. So I'm not going to label nearly $568,000 as lawsuits, litigation, labor disputes, special education matters, or anything else without the receipts to support it.
But the amount itself is worth putting on the ledger.
More than half a million dollars in identifiable law-firm payments in one school year — with nearly $394,000 going to a single firm — raises the next obvious question:
What legal services were Southfield taxpayers paying for?
That may be a rabbit hole worth following. 🐇🪶
With receipts and respect.
#LadyBudgetdown #SouthfieldPublicSchools #SouthfieldSchools #LegalSpending #SchoolSpending #TaxpayerDollars #CheckRegister #SchoolTransparency #MichiganSchools #FollowTheReceipts #WithReceiptsAndRespect