Middletown BOE Decides Not To Re-Hire Board Lawyer Bruce Padula

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Update: Two days later, the Board took a new vote and this time hired Padula. Read that story: Middletown BOE Rehires Politically Connected Lawyer Bruce Padula

At their meeting Tuesday night, the Middletown school board rejected a proposal from Board president Frank Capone to re-hire Bruce Padula as the school district's lawyer.

The Board was asked to vote on a professional services agreement to hire Padula Law Group, LLC as board attorney. His contract would last from February 17, 2025 - June 30, 2025. His hourly rate — paid by Middletown taxpayers — was not revealed in these public documents asking the Board to re-hire him.

Capone is not answering when Patch asked repeatedly how much the public school district would have paid Padula.

Padula has been the Middletown school board lawyer for the past several years; he used to work for Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri & Jacobs law firm, but he just recently quit that firm and started his own law firm.

Board members Leonora Caminiti, Joseph Fitzgerald, Deb Wright and Mark Soporowski all said they would vote against keeping Padula as board lawyer. Caminiti, Soporowski and Wright also accused Capone of trying to rush through the re-hiring of Padula.

"It was given to me but we didn't talk about it," said said Caminiti. "It was not discussed at all. I don't understand — it's a new firm ... Why wasn't any of this explained to us before?"

"I have a concern because this was on the agenda; there was no attachment," Soporowski told Capone. "I got that from you this morning and I feel like it was too last minute to go through it. I didn't have enough time to go through it and review it."

"This was not given to us until very, very late," said Wright. "If we're looking to now enter into a new contract, this is information that should have been put in front of us to have a full discussion, so that way we know what we're voting on."

Capone replied that Padula's proposal to re-hire him was just given to him "about a week ago."

"If anyone had any questions, they were free to call me or ask me at any time," said Padula at the meeting.

In the past two years, Padula has suffered a series of losses in court in his representation of the Middletown school district:

First, he and Board vice president Jacqueline Tobacco wrote Middletown's transgender student policy that got the school district sued by the NJ Attorney General in 2023.

In August of that year, a Monmouth County Superior Court judge placed an injunction (legal block) on the policy, saying he was concerned Middletown's policy could put teens at risk, and that the policy may violate New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination.

Padula appealed. This month, three judges from the New Jersey Court of Appeals said they agreed with the Superior Court judge, and ruled Middletown's transgender student policy risked harming youth and may also be illegal.

Tobacco and Capone insist they won their legal battle with the state, as the Appeals Court lifted the injunction, allowing Middletown to remove its policy altogether.

You can watch Tuesday night's Board meeting; the discussion about re-hiring Padula starts at 2:40: