Fake Lawyer Earned Real 225k as Staff Attorney (MORE, CLICK HERE)

BOGUS ATT'Y TAKES A TRIP
The New York Post By LAURA ITALIANO - January 31, 2008 -- Brian Valery loved being a lawyer.

He worked as much as 70 hours a week at one of the city's top insurance-litigation firms for two years, helping some 50 clients win cases. Valery even earned an annual salary of $155,000. But there was one problem: Valery wasn't a lawyer. He hadn't even attended law school.

Valery, 33, of Massapequa Park, LI, stood yesterday before a Manhattan judge, who sentenced him to five years of probation for pulling off the elaborate masquerade. "I guess he got away with it so long because he was so talented, and so hardworking," said Valery's lawyer, Bob LaRusso. "He worked 60, 70 hours a week. He worked longer hours than I ever did."

The punishment came after it was discovered that Valery had fibbed his way up the ladder at insurance-litigation heavyweight Anderson Kill & Olick - going from a lowly, $21,000-a-year paralegal to earning $155,000 as a staff attorney.

By the time he got caught - after a friend saw his name in connection with a big liability case involving the painkiller OxyContin, and did some digging - he'd helped some 50 clients at the 130-lawyer firm.

Valery's ruse was as time-consuming as it was intricate. He'd begun by telling his trusting bosses he was attending Fordham Law School. Truth was, he didn't even possess an undergraduate degree. Bizarrely, Valery twice told his bosses he'd flunked the bar, only to give them the good news of his "passing" in 2003 - all of it untrue.

Yesterday, Valery was calm during his brief sentencing - but flipped out when he saw photographers waiting outside.
He nearly got run over by a car as he dashed across Lafayette Street, then slipped and fell to his knees while attempting to bob and weave evasively on the rain-slicked sidewalk. "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" he shouted.

In addition to probation, Valery has to pay back $225,000 in ill-gotten salary to the firm, and serve 100 hours of community service.

laura.italiano@nypost.com