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Posts tagged as “Sharon Rudnick”

How much has UO spent on lawyers to fight our grad students?

12/6/2014 update: New reports on legal and consulting expenses, here. Some to HLGR for GTFF bargaining, some for the UOPD union, some for things JH really doesn’t want to attach an accounting code to:

Legal:

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Consulting:

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11/6/2014 update: I don’t know, I’m crowd-sourcing this one:

In response to questions about the total cost of the hiring HLGR for the GTFF bargaining, here are links to some public records on legal (and consulting) expenses. File dates are approximate and a mix of xls and the badly scanned pdfs Dave Hubin’s public records office sends out to make life harder, but I think I’ve got complete coverage from 2011 to the end of October. If someone wants to put together a spreadsheet for just the GTFF costs please email me a copy and I’ll post it.

2011-2013 legal billing

2013 – June 2014 legal

1/1/2013-9/15/2014 consulting and 6/1/2014-9/18/2014 legal

Sept and October 2014 legal and consulting.

(new) October 2014 legal and consulting.

(link fixed)
Here’s a sample of a detailed HLGR invoice from the faculty union bargaining, after redactions by our General Counsel’s office:

I’ve made a PR request for the September 2014 invoices, which should show more about what Rudnick, Matthews, and Grado are doing to justify the astonishingly expensive GTFF bargaining:

Subject: Re: Public Records Request 2015-PRR-092
Date: November 5, 2014 at 4:48:17 PM PST
Cc: doug park
To: Lisa Thornton

Dear Ms Thornton –

Thanks for these accounting reports.

This is a public records request for the six detailed HLGR invoices with transactions dates of 24-Sep-14.

I ask for a fee waiver on the basis of public interest. Because of the timeliness of issues around HLGR’s work for UO on GTFF bargaining and other issues, I would appreciate it you could expedite this request.

I’m ccing Doug Park on this request as his office has these documents and can easily make them available.

Thanks,

Bill Harbaugh
UO Prof of Economics
http://harbaugh.org

11/5/2014: Coltrane still letting Frohnmayer’s HLGR firm rake in the billable hours

It took another petition to the Lane County DA, but at least Doug Park didn’t accuse me of harassment this time. here are the latest HLGR billing numbers. Presumably UO was sitting on these because they didn’t want the grad students to know how much Coltrane was willing to pay noted tobacco company lawyer Sharon Rudnick and Jeff Matthews to bargain against them:

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Of course some of those invoices are probably for other things, like negotiating Gottfredson’s buyout, or perhaps for dealing with the rape allegation cover-up. And here are the consulting payments – looks like Huron is back:

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9/26/2014: Has Coltrane fired Sharon Rudnick and Frohnmayer’s HLGR law firm?

Park wants another helper lawyer, and $ to show Geller docs

9/12/2014 update:

Job ad here: http://jobs.uoregon.edu/unclassified.php?id=4873. Still no update to the GC’s webpage about who is currently working there. Meanwhile Doug Park wants $79.60 for the docs explaining Geller’s sudden resignation:

The University of Oregon has received your public records request for “any emails or other public records sent or received by Randy Geller between March 9th and May 6th, related to his April 21 decision to retire, as announced by ‘Around the O'” 06/17/2014, attached. The office has at least some documents responsive to your request. By this email, the office is providing you with an estimate to respond to your requests.

The office estimates the actual cost of responding to your request to be $79.60. Upon receipt of a check made payable to the University of Oregon for that amount, the office will proceed to locate, copy, and provide the records you have requested that are not exempt from disclosure. Your check may be sent to the attention of Office of Public Records, 6207 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-6207.

Request for a public interest fee waiver denied. Seriously? What does it take? A story on KATU television?

9/4/2014: Gottfredson gave Doug Park a $68K raise and Geller’s family bowl game junkets to serve as acting GC for a year

Melinda Grier no longer “Of Counsel” for Hirschfeld and Kraemer

9/8/2014 update: This SF firm does anti-union work for employers and billed UO quite a bit during Berdahl and Gottfredson’s attempts to fight the faculty union. Lately they’ve turned to the presumably lucrative business of running workshops about sexual harassment and Title IX training, taught by, of all people, former UO GC Emerita Melinda Grier. A few months ago they even added Grier to the firm, as “Of Counsel”:

But now she’s been dropped. No word yet if they are still billing UO $25K or so a month:

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6/18/2014: Melinda Grier, HLGR, Rudnick, Matthews making bank off UO legal fees

It looks like many other firms are getting some action from Randy Geller too. Here’s April and May, full dump here:

UO cancels legal contract with HLGR, will negotiate directly with grad students and faculty

Josephine Wollington has the story in the RG about this very unusual mid-negotiation change and the positive response from the union leadership. This is great news, Rudnick and Matthews have been an expensive disaster for UO. It seems that the new leadership wants a less confrontational approach, and isn’t going…

Gottfredson extends union benefits to OAs, but not to GTFs.

After paying noted tobacco company attorney Sharon Rudnick and her friends $1M to unsuccessfully argue “The University” couldn’t afford to give these benefits to faculty union members, Gottfredson now wants credit for giving them to the non-unionized faculty and the OAs too. His email manages to try this without once…

UO to hire faculty labor director

Update: Make that 2: http://jobs.uoregon.edu/unclassified.php?id=4538 President Gottfredson blew $1M on Sharon Rudnick and her helpers. After first putting Jim Bean in charge of bargaining, he’s now paying the feckless Tim Gleason $218K a year to work on contract implementation and strategic communications about the CBA. He’s paying $122,004 to Sam…

Bad news on future pay

9/26/2013: As near as I can tell UO has been spending about $50K a month on Sharon Rudnick and Kate Grado from HLGR to do the negotiating with the union, and another $30K or so a month for lawyers and consultants to write Barbara Altmann’s “fact check” website. That’s a…

Update: Latest Rudnick, Kraemer, and Julius invoices for union bargaining

9/17/2013: UO’s GC Randy Geller is hard at work, building trust between President Gottfredson and the faculty with these latest redactions: 8/7/2013: Full pdf here. It took 2 months, $214.50, and a petition to Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner to get UO General Counsel Randy Geller to produce these.…

Bargaining XXXVI: Rudnick violates UO respectful workplace policy?

Thursday 8/29/2013, 9am-4pm, room 122 Knight Library.The admin team’s fact-check on this post should be quite interesting.Lead admin negotiator and noted tobacco company lawyer Sharon Rudnick violates UO Respectful Workplace Policy? If you’d showed up you’d probably know what I’m talking about. Don’t miss the next session: Tuesday, 9/3, 10AM. Your chance…

Help UO Matters find out who checks Rudnick’s UO billings

8/14/2013 update: Finally got one page from Geller’s office on HLGR billing issues, in which Rudnick’s firm promises to be more vigilant in the future. 6/23/2013. Surely someone in Randy Geller’s GC office has responsibility for looking over the billable hours, checking productivity, asking questions about the inevitable little mistakes…

Ducks now more transparent than Johnson Hall

8/7/2013: Want to get a copy of the Duck game contracts? Less than 24 hours turnaround, and no fee: Nicholls State Game ContractRequester: Stites, SamOrganization: Register GuardInitial Request Date: 08/06/2013Status: Records ProvidedRequest Completion Date: 08/06/2013a request for the “football game contract” or other similar document or documents between the University…