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of financial services to its clients. For some clients, it
maintained checking accounts, paid bills, and prepared weekly
statements showing the client's opening balance, deposits,
withdrawals, and expenditures. On January 1, 1979, Alter,
LeFevre merged with another law firm, Aranow & Brodsky, but the
resulting firm ceased operations by Labor Day of that year, and
that same month Alter and Feinstein joined Shea & Gould.
In the fall of 1981, Alter asked Feinstein to review the
Plastics Recycling transactions as a potential investment for
Alter and some of his clients. Feinstein received a copy of the
Poly Reclamation offering memorandum from Winer. He spent
approximately 4 to 6 hours reviewing it, including the financial
projections and the tax opinion. Feinstein understood that
Hirshfield and Ferraro had spoken to members of the law firm that
drafted the tax opinion, and that they and Trost were satisfied
with the opinion. He also understood that "someone asked one of
the tax partners to look at the thing in general", but he did not
know "how much detail * * * [Shea & Gould] did." Although Alter
claimed that he asked Feinstein "to check with the tax partner in
the firm, Alan Parker", Feinstein did not speak with Parker.
Feinstein relied on the offering memorandum for the value of
the Sentinel EPE recycler. He understood that the purported
value of the Sentinel EPE recycler was based upon a projected
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