POWER

OF
ATTORNEY
2015 Outside Income Update
New York legislators raked in millions in outside income from law firms in 2014

Outside income reports made public by the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE)
reveal that 23 New York legislators were paid between $3 and $4.19 million 1 for private legal work
ranging from litigation and strategic
planning to ambiguous of counsel
Legal Fees or Something More?
jobs.

The average lawyer-legislator

received between $130,000 and
$182,000 in outside income, far
more than their $79,500 base salary.

Forty-two members of the state

legislature are attorneys, or
approximately 1 in 5. Of those, ten
are personal injury attorneys.

...[Assembly Speaker] Silver

corruptly collected some $4
million dollars in bribes and
kickbacks disguised as

referral fees...
Preet Bharara, US Attorney, Southern
District of NY

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Despite accounting for less than a

quarter of the total number of lawyer-legislators, personal injury attorneys accounted for 65% of all
outside legal income, between $2.07 and $2.71 million.

The average personal injury lawyer-legislator received between $207,000 and $271,000 in outside
income in 2014, or approximately three times their state salary.

BY THE

NUMBERS

$4.2M
IN OUTSIDE
LEGAL INCOME

PAID TO NY

LEGISLATORS

20%

OF NY LEGISLATORS

$239K
IN OUTSIDE LEGAL INCOME

ARE LAWYERS FOR THE AVERAGE

PERSONAL INJURY
LAWYER-LEGISLATOR

Due to an ongoing federal corruption case, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver has refused to report his outside income for his of counsel position
with the plaintiffs firm Weitz & Luxenberg. This analysis assumes the same income as reported for the prior year, between $650,000 and
$750,000.

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