When Suffolk Det. Joseph Brock began seeking a state disability pension in 1990, there seemed to be several obstacles in his path.

After 21 years on the force, Brock reported that he tripped over a telephone wire in his office and hurt his left foot. He said he could hardly walk and went on sick leave.

But potential problems kept coming up. Someone in his chain of command added a handwritten note to the official accident report that seemed to strike a skeptical note: "as per Sgt. McVeigh -did not fall."

An X-ray, an MRI and an electro-diagnostic test found nothing conclusive, acording to reports by the doctors who conducted the tests. And Dr. Melvin Jahss, a Manhattan orthopedist who examined Brock, concluded: "I find no evidence of any objective orthopedic or neurological disorders at this time."

As things turned out, however, the questions about Brock's accident and his disability proved to be no problem. One of Long Island's leading lawyers in the field of police disability, Michael Axelrod, already had won a case for another police client that set a precedent helpful to Brock -that a slip-and-fall accident need not include an actual fall to be considered legitimate.

And Brock's orthopedist, Dr. Stephen Zolan, who has treated dozens of police disability applicants, diagnosed him as totally disabled for police work, despite the negative results of the diagnostic tests.

Ultimately, the state pension system agreed with Zolan. Brock retired at age 46 in 1992 with a disability pension of $52,973 a year, tax free. His pension was boosted by the $8,006 worth of overtime he worked in his last year.

Brock did not respond to a request for an interview, but Newsday observed him recently working around his house, walking around his Bay Shore neighborhood and shopping, without any sign of a limp. He wore a tee-shirt for a local health and racquetball club, where an employee said he's a member.

State pension proceedings are confidential, so exactly how state officials reached their decision on Brock isn't public record. Assistant Deputy State Comptroller John McManaman said the doctor who examined Brock for the state agreed with Zolan's diagnosis. McManaman said he couldn't elaborate because of privacy rules.

Brock's case illustrates how a small group of lawyers and doctors has played a central role in winning police disability pensions in scores of Long Island cases, some of them clearcut, others based on unwitnessed accidents and conflicting medical evidence. Most police disability claims involve back, knee or other orthopedic ailments in which the medical evidence supporting an applicant's complaints of pain can be ambiguous and open to different interpretations.

Newsday's investigation of the disability pension system found that the same few doctors and law firms appear repeatedly in police cases. Their important role in the process was emphasized in an internal study by the pension system in 1991. The study noted the "greater sophistication" of Long Island disability applications and said Nassau and Suffolk "evidence a high rate of disability approvals, probably as the result of pre-application legal and medical advice."

Two orthopedists, who figured in many of the cases examined by Newsday, were described by police and county officials as the leading police-disability doctors on Long Island,

One is Zolan, who practices with the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York Inc. in North Babylon. The state used to hire Zolan as a consulting doctor to examine Long Island police disability applicants for the pension system. State officials said they dropped Zolan as a consultant in 1988, however, because he also continued serving as the private doctor for many police disability applicants, and officials said his dual role raised concerns of a conflict of interest.

Nassau County also used Zolan as a consulting doctor to examine employees who filed injury claims under the workers compensation system. County officials told Newsday they dropped Zolan as a consultant after a police official and a workers compensation judge questioned his credibility. Zolan did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

The other orthopedist identified by police and county officials as one of Long Island's two top police-disability doctors is Dr. Jacob Lehman, who has a private practice in Patchogue. Like Zolan, Lehman has figured in cases where officers he diagnosed as disabled were awarded disability pensions although police investigations found them capable of strenuous activities.

For instance, Nassau Police Officer Robert Grzymala, diagnosed by Lehman as disabled with a herniated disc, refused to come in from sick leave and testify against a criminal defendant, saying he was in too much pain. But two days later, police caught him playing 23 holes of golf, quitting only when it got dark.

A Suffolk police official said the department's orthopedist has criticized Lehman as too quick to diagnose officers as disabled and to approve long sick leaves. Lehman also did not reply to requests for an interview.

For many officers, applying for a disability pension is largely a free ride. Both the Nassau and Suffolk Police Benevolent Associations, the unions representing rank-and-file officers, have law firms on retainer that handle members' applications for free or at nominal cost.

Attorney Richard Lerner, who handles many disability-pension applications for officers who want their own lawyer rather than the union's, discussed his fees in an interview: "My fee is, I charge $950 for the application. If they get the disability after the application, then I charge nothing further. There is no hidden contingency cost. If it's an appeal, I charge $3,000 for the first three hearings. If it goes beyond the three hearings, there usually is an additional fee. The appeals are rather time consuming and hard to do."

The expense of officers' medical examinations is mostly or entirely covered by the workers compensation system. Workers compensation, a county-financed program separate from the state pension system, pays medical bills and other benefits for police and other municipal employees hurt on the job. A single visit to an orthopedist can cost over $200.

Former State Comptroller Edward Regan attributed the boom in Long Island police disability cases in recent years partly to "very, very, very clever lawyers who have taken advantage of everything." State records show that Nassau and Suffolk have had much higher rates of approval for disability applications than other parts of the state.

Lawyers who handle police disability cases say that one reason for Long Island's high approval rate is that they reject many pension-seekers whose cases are weak. Milan Rada, a partner in the firm that handles most Nassau disability cases, said that 409 PBA members had come to him since 1988 seeking disability retirements. Of those, he represented only 205, he said. "What we have tried to do is to screen the cases very, very carefully and put in only those who we thought had merit," Rada said.

Four law firms have represented most of Long Island's successful police disability applicants, lawyers and police officials say. One of those firms also serves as legal counsel to one of the major police lobbying groups, which has successfully pushed for legislation over the years that has expanded and sweetened the state's police-disability program. The firms are:

• Scheine, Fusco, Brandenstein & Rada of Commack, which has a contract with the Nassau Police Benevolent Association to represent disability applicants.
• Kranz, Davis & Hersh of Hauppauge, which represents the Suffolk Police Benevolent Association.
• Axelrod, Cornachio & Famighetti of Mineola, formerly legal counsel to the Nassau PBA, currently the law firm for the Suffolk Superior Officers Association and the Metropolitan Police Conference, a lobbying broup.
• Lerner, Gordon & Hirsch of Carle Place. Partner Richard Lerner is a former Nassau PBA attorney.

The road from an injury to a disability pension can be long and full of potholes. Some applications roll through the system smoothly. Others spend years in administrative hearings and the courts. Along the way the applicant must successfully deal with various make-or-break questions. Does the mishap that caused the injury satisfy the legal definition of an accident, or was it a predictable hazard of the job? Did the bad back result from the accident or just from aging? Is the limp permanent or will it clear up?

It's a system that's complicated and sometimes adversarial. But it offers a lucrative reward, and applicants' doctors and lawyers serve as expert guides. In the often murky world of police injuries, where many cases are ambiguous and open to dispute, they make the wheels turn. Here is a look at some of the players and issues:

THE DOCTORS

Among those whose work involves police disability pension cases, there are two sharply contrasting views of Zolan and Lehman. To lawyers who represent applicants, the two orthopedists are part of a dwindling breed, specialists whose success hasn't caused them to lose the common touch. While some doctors shun the red tape of treating government employees, or charge hefty fees to testify at hearings, lawyers say Lehman and Zolan have developed a large clientele among public employees because they help their patients navigate the swamps of bureaucracy.

Although the confidentiality of medical records makes exact statistics impossible, county and police officials in Nassau and Suffolk say that Lehman and Zolan are the leading practitioners in representing police applicants in disability pension proceedings, figuring in hundreds of cases.

Attorney Richard Lerner, who has represented hundreds of officers seeking disability pensions, said Zolan and Lehman have two of the largest public-employee practices on Long Island because they are expert not only at medicine but also at government paperwork and testimony. "Dr. Zolan and Dr. Lehman are very, very good practicing doctors..." Lerner said. "They do a tremendous amount of policemen."

But among police officials whose duties include investigating malingering and sick-leave abuse, Lehman and Zolan are sometimes criticized as too quick to diagnose a backache as justifying a disability pension or long sick-leave.

"Their names are well-known to us; we frequently see them," said Deputy Suffolk Police Commissioner Robert Kearon. "I would assume that it has to do with the success rate that these doctors have enjoyed with other applications. Word obviously quickly spreads throughout the police community that a particular doctor happens to write reports in such a way that they're generally favorably received."

Sgt. Vincent Ward, former head of the Suffolk police medical evaluation unit, which monitors officers on sick leave, said: "If a cop calls up his union and says, 'Can you recommend an orthopedic doctor?' the union's either going to recommend Zolan or Lehman. And I find that my counterpart in Nassau County, he comes up with the same names, so his union must be recommending the same doctors."

Suffolk PBA officers refused to talk to Newsday. Ward said he believed the two doctors are popular because they are liberal in writing recommendations for sick leave. "They give the notes freely...," Ward said. "If the guy says I want to stay out, they'll give him the notes keeping him out a few months."

Det. Sgt. Robert Kiesel of the Nassau police department's medical administration unit said: "Zolan saw so many patients from this department, he has to be number one...What happens is they build a reputation. . . And it becomes known, and one guy says 'Go see my doctor, he's a good doctor,' and the guy does, and his clientele builds. He does very well at it."

State and police union officials, however, say the system has ample safeguards to weed out undeserving applicants even if their own doctors may find disability in questionable cases. Disability pension applicants must be examined by a state-appointed doctor as well as their own physician, and a board of doctors reviews the findings before the state comptroller makes a decision.

Nassau PBA President Gary DelaRaba scoffed at criticism from former State Comptroller Edward Regan that too many Long Island officers have gotten disability pensions with the help of doctors and lawyers who specialize in such cases.

"So Ned Reagan says 'Hey, I got a problem with this?' Maybe he ought to take a look at his doctors...I mean, the guy's got to have an injury. He's got to be able to document it, correct? I mean, if you can't document it, do you think that we're that sharp, that we've managed to insert PBA doctors into the state system?"

In fact, during the 1980s, Zolan did receive appointments as an examining doctor for the state pension system. The system hires local doctors around the state as consultants to examine disability applicants. State officials say Zolan was dropped as a state consultant in 1988, however, because he also continued to serve as the personal physician for many police applicants in other disability pension cases.

Deputy State Comptroller John Mauhs, who heads the system, said state officials believed Zolan's dual role raised "the concern of a conflict of interest. Dr. Zolan was performing so many examinations for the union, for the policeman, we felt perhaps he was not as independent as he should be. We wanted an independent appraisal of our applicants."

Zolan also worked for Nassau County as a consultant during the 1980s, examining county employees who filed claims for on-the-job injuries. A high-ranking county official, who asked not to be identified, told Newsday that one reason the county used Zolan as a consultant was to prevent his being used by county employees seeking benefits.

Officials considered Zolan an effective advocate for his patients and decided the easiest way to neutralize him was to hire him for the county's side, the official said. If Zolan was testifying for the county then he couldn't also testify for employees. "He was killing us with his testimony," the official said, "so we decided to hire him ourselves."

But the county dropped Zolan, officials said, after police officials and a workers compensation judge complained about him. In one case that particularly annoyed Nassau police officials, Zolan issued what they considered conflicting medical opinions on Police Officer George Rivera, who was complaining of elbow pain in 1985.

Rivera said his injury occurred when a seizure patient banged his arm into the side of an ambulance. When Zolan first examined Rivera for the county, he described Rivera's condition as "a mild, minimal disability" unrelated to the ambulance incident. "I think that the patient's present lateral epiconylitis probably originated in its severe degree from his...digging in his yard," Zolan wrote.

Then, Rivera became a private patient of Zolan's, according to records. Eleven months after the first report, Zolan wrote that although the digging had "aggravated" Rivera's elbow problem, "his present condition is the natural and proximate result in my opinion" of the ambulance incident -a change which made the elbow ailment a work-related injury for which doctor bills could be paid by workers compensation.

A Nassau police surgeon, Dr. A. Malcolm Hetzer, who examined Rivera, wrote that the officer had been seeing another doctor but "has not seen him in six months. Now sees Dr. Zolan (advises him he has arthritis and should file for 3/4 disability)...Filed for 3/4 disability one week ago." The fraction 3/4 is police shorthand for a disability pension, referring to the maximum possible benefit of three-quarters pay. Rivera's disability pension application was turned down.

Det. Sgt. Kiesel said he went to the county attorney's office to complain about Zolan. Kiesel said he understood the pragmatic reason for using Zolan but felt it was wrong.

"He knows full well who's paying his check," Kiesel said. "So if it's the patient, the guy can never work...But if it's for the county attorney, the guy can always work; he's never disabled. He knows who's signing the check. That's why the county attorney loved him....I said, 'Give me a break, it's not right, it doesn't look good.' So they started using other doctors."

Asked why the county dropped Zolan, Assistant County Attorney Peter McDonald, who heads the unit that administers workers compensation cases, said one reason was a conversation McDonald had with a state judge from the workers compensation system.

McDonald said the judge, whom he wouldn't identify, called him aside and told him the county was hurting itself by using Zolan as an expert witness. "Not in his court, is what he told me, this particular judge," McDonald said. "'Not in my court. You're not doing yourself any good. He has no credibility.' So we stopped using him."

In the disability pension case of Suffolk Detective Brock, who said a trip on a phone wire left him with severe pain in his left foot, Zolan was Brock's private physician. Although an MRI and a consulting orthopedist found no conclusive evidence to substantiate his complaints, Zolan found Brock totally disabled and unable to fire his gun, and Brock's chiropractor said his limp had caused a back problem, according to medical records.

Assistant Deputy State Comptroller John McManaman, while declining to discuss the case in detail, said there was disagreement among doctors over the MRI findings. "There were interpretations that the MRI was positive, and the orthopedist who examined him for us found the disability...Our doctor and Brock's doctor did find the disability."

For years, the road to retirement for some Suffolk police officers, and for some Nassau officers who live in Suffolk, also has led to the offices of Dr. Jacob Lehman, who started his practice in Patchogue in 1966. Police and county officials say that Lehman handles more police cases than any other orthopedist in the county and that, like Zolan, he has faced some criticism from the police department.

Ward, the former Suffolk medical sergeant, said when an orthopedist, Dr. Robert Reiss, began work as a departmental doctor last year, Ward warned him that one thing about the job would be different from what the doctor was accustomed to. "What you're going to see, it's not like your private practice," Ward said he told Reiss. "Private people come to see you in private practice to get better. I said, you're going to see a bunch of people coming through here, they don't want to get better - they want to retire."

Since Reiss joined the department, Ward said, he has often disagreed with Lehman's diagnoses. "Most of the time," Ward said. "He calls him up on the phone -'How can you do this?'" Reiss has also met with Lehman and urged him to shorten the sick leaves he recommends, Ward said. Reiss declined to be interviewed.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lehman referred some police patients to two diagnostic testing businesses in which he owned financial interests, according to records. This practice of so-called self-referral became controversial in the mid-1980s and will become illegal next year under a new state law.

Lehman filed documents in court in 1991 disclosing that he was a limited partner in Long Island NMR of New Hyde Park, which does magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests, and South Shore Cat Scan of Medford. The State Legislature passed a law in 1992 prohibiting such referrals but gave doctors who already held such interests until July 1, 1995, to stop referring patients to the facilities.

Nassau and Suffolk are self-insured for employee medical expenses; all diagnostic tests ordered by doctors in workers compensation cases are paid for with county funds. Deputy Police Commissioner Kearon, an attorney, said the department didn't know about Lehman's interest in the diagnostic facilities, an arrangement that he said "raises questions."

"When they seek authorization from us or from Albany or whomever for additional diagnostic tests to confirm preliminary medical opinions at the same time they may be financially benefitting from those tests, then I question whether or not there's a bit of a conflict of interest," Kearon said. "Certainly it would appear that way."

The MRI that Long Island NMR did on Grzymala at Lehman's request cost $950. Records show that Lehman made $72,067 from the two diagnostic businesses during 1988 and 1989.

THE LAWYERS

"Injured on or off the job? We'll protect your rights. We'll help you get all the monetary and health care benefits you deserve."

The legal advertisement in last December's Nassau PBA newsletter trumpeted the services of Scheine, Fusco, Brandenstein & Rada. The PBA put the Commack firm on retainer in 1988, paying them about $65,000 a year to lead cops through the complex workers compensation and police disability systems. The firm's hiring has paid off - its disability clients have a 75 percent approval rate in Albany.

But critics of Scheine Fusco and the three other Long Island law firms that represent police disability applicants say they are the driving force behind a dramatic increase in awards of the lucrative pensions, with the retirement system staff no match for their preparedness and legal expertise.

"The bigger the union, the more financial resources they have through dues. And they can hire high-priced attorneys who are much more sophisticated in their abilities," said Nassau Police Comissioner Donald Kane.

Three of the four top Long Island police-disability lawyers were proteges of Richard Hartman, the former Nassau and New York City PBA attorney credited with making Long Island police among the highest paid in the nation. In interviews, Allen Kranz, Michael Axelrod and Richard Lerner said they gained invaluable experience during their years with Hartman, a workaholic near-genius who was a master of both the political arts of winning bigger police benefits and the legal expertise to make sure clients got to take full advantage of them. (Hartman left the practice of law in 1988, acknowledging he had improperly borrowed clients' escrow funds to pay off gambling debts.)

The fourth leading police-disability lawyer on Long Island, Milan Rada, is a former attorney for the Social Security system. The sophistication of these lawyers, state officials say, gives Long Island police an edge over those from areas with smaller police forces, where lawyers who specialize in police pension law often don't exist.

The lawyers advise police applicants at every step along the process toward getting disabiility retirement. First, they review their cases to see if they meet the technical legal requirement for disability retirement. Then they look to see if the cops have undergone sufficient diagnostic testing to prove they are disabled and have statements of disability from their doctors.

Occasionally, Axelrod said, he will ask doctors to revise, their statements slightly to help cops win disability pensions. "I have a very significant percentage of these letters that are not good, not the sort of letters I would want to see...," Axelrod said. "..The letter will say, 'Prognosis at this time is guarded.'"

But, he said, the term "at this time" suggests that the officer could get better. Disabliity retirements are supposed to be permanent. "We'll ask a doctor to review the letter to see if it's possible to have 'at this time' removed," Axelrod said. "Obviously, they can't change the content."

A promotional brochure for the Scheine, Fusco firm says: "It is essential that we keep close ties to the health care community, so that we can refer our clients to qualified doctors, chiropractors and health care professionals on request."

Axelrod represented the Nassau PBA before Scheine, Fusco was hired. Part of Axelrod's arrangement with the PBA was that he would represent any member who wanted to get disability retirement. Sometimes, Axelrod acknowledged, the cases would be "turkeys."

"I've seen ... hundreds of police officers come in, many of them were legitimately hurt, many -some -were looking for the golden parachute....When police officers saw their fellow brother or sister police officers getting it, then they in turn wanted to get it themselves.

"In 1976, four Nassau police officers got accidental disabilities," said Axelrod, who still represents many police and fire groups, including the Nassau detectives and the Suffolk Superior Officers Association. "In 1986, the number was about 92, some phenomenal number. There were a lot of lawyers who understood the game."

When newly-elected PBA President Gary DelaRaba hired Scheine, Fusco to do the disabilty work in 1988, the rules of the game were changed. No longer would the PBA subsidize any disability claim, no matter how tenuous. "Guys used to think it was a constitutional right to file for three-quarters," DelaRaba said. Under the PBA agreement with Scheine, Fusco, the firm has the right to turn down cases they don't think are winnable.

DelaRaba argues that the screening of applications by Rada's firm amounts to a weeding-out of potentially phony disability claims. On the other hand, the PBA retainer to Scheine Fusco -which DelaRaba said amounts to about $65,000 a year -facilitates filing by Nassau cops, who otherwise would have to hire their own lawyers.

The Nassau PBA newsletter bombards members with tips on how to maximize their pension and disability benefits. Almost every issue contains a report on disability applications, telling officers the proper way to fill out accident reports, the types of accidents that qualify for disability, and the smorgasbord of other benefits available to those who are injured -including Social Security disability and monetary awards from negligence lawsuits filed against private citizens.

For some firms, lawyers say, handling disability retirement cases for police at lower fees than they charge in other cases serves as a sort of loss-leader. The good will and name-recognition among police generates plenty of other business such as real estate closings, negligence suits, divorces and estate work.

It was Axelrod who won a precedent-setting case in 1985 establishing that a slip-and-fall accident need not include a fall to meet the definition of an accident, a ruling that helped the case of Suffolk Detective Brock, whose accident report said he tripped on a phone wire but did not fall.

Axelrod, who's also North Hempstead Town Republican leader and counsel to a police lobbying organization, the Metropolitan Police Conference, said he's represented hundreds of disability applicants since the 1970s. He says most of them were legitimate.

"The overwhelming number of these officers who received them are seriously hurt doing a very difficult job. Yes, there are fakers, there are in every walk of life...I have a very high success ratio on these pensions--three out of four or better, and my success ratio on appeals is better than one out of three. That's very high -they've been rejected and we've reversed it."

BOARD MEMBERS

Here are the six members of the state retirement system's medical board who decide if applicants for disability pensions are disabled. They hold two four-hour meetings a week and are each paid $400 per session.

• Dr. Kevin D. Barron, 65, is a professor of neurology, pathology and laboratory medicine at the Albany Medical College of Union University and a consultant at Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center in Albany. Born in St. John's, Newfoundland, he received his medical degree at Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine in Halifax in 1952. He did his residencies in internal medicine at Victoria General Hospital in Halifax and Queen Mary VA Hospital in Montreal and his residency in neurology at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. He is a past chairman of neurology at Albany Medical Center Hospital.

• Dr. George W. Hemstead, 74, is a clinical associate professor at Albany Medical College. Born in Albany, he was certified in internal medicine in 1953. He earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1944 and did his residency at Albany Medical Center Hospital. He also has a private practice.

• Dr. Carl R. Wirth, 54, is an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Albany Medical College, where he earned his medical degree in 1966. He did both his internship and residency at Albany Medical Center Hospital. Wirth also has been an orthopedic consultant for the Siena College basketball team and the team physician for the Albany- Colonie Yankees, a New York Yankees farm team.

• Dr. Franklin Glockner, 63, is chief of orthopedic surgery at Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center in Albany and an associate professor of clinical surgery at Albany Medical College. He earned his medical degree at State University of New York at Buffalo in 1960. He did his residency in general surgery at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and in orthopedic surgery at Albany Medical Center. He also has a private practice.

• Dr. James F. Castleman, 59, is a clinical associate professor of medicine at Albany Medical College. A hematologist, he graduated from New York Medical College in 1960 and has a private practice. Dr. James M. Sullivan is retired from private practice. Born in 1937, he is an oncologist and a clinical associate professor of medicine at Albany Medical College, where he received his medical degree in internal medicine in 1963.

Board Members Compiled by Eden Laikin.