Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
A federal judge last week invited 12,400 former and current Justice Department lawyers to join a class-action lawsuit accusing the Department of deliberately withholding overtime pay earned by the lawyers.

The Justice Department is accused of keeping two sets of books — one in which lawyers were asked to falsely affirm that they only worked 40 hours per week, another in which actual work hours were logged.

The Justice Department used the latter account as the basis for Congressional funding, performance reviews, and billing legal fees to other parties, the New York Times reported.

The Times also reports that internal documents showed that Justice Department officials knew that what they were doing was illegal, but believed that paying lawyers for overtime would cost too much and reduce the agency’s culture of professionalism.

The class-action lawsuit, filed last year on behalf of nearly 200 lawyers, seeks a half-billion dollars in damages.