Lost and Found
Pete Mastroianni ’90 is working to spread that joy by educating people about escheatment, a legal process that turns over unclaimed assets to state treasuries. These funds often sit untouched while the rightful beneficiary remains in the dark. Though the individual amounts may be small, they can add up; in New York alone, there is an estimated $17 billion in unclaimed funds.
“In studying philosophy, you would propagate a theory that you think is unassailable, and then you’d see it completely ripped apart,” he says. “Similarly, the arguments you make as a lawyer have to be extremely strong, but you must also acknowledge and defend the holes in your logic.”
Mastroianni co-founded the law firm Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP with classmates Courtland Reichman ’90, Sarah Newland Jorgensen ’90, and Christine Lehman ’90; Other alumni at the firm include Jaime Cardenas-Navia ’07, who made partner this year.
While working with the firm’s Fortune 100 clients, Mastroianni realized that much like his family and friends whom he had helped with escheatment, companies and charities probably also had unclaimed funds. This led him down a rabbit hole of entering major corporations and nonprofits into state databases, finding that all of them had a significant amount of escheated funds.
Armed with this knowledge, Mastroianni started Escheatment.com, a free service that allows users to quickly search through state treasuries to see if they are owed money. “The idea that I had for the site was to remove the obstacles and create an efficient place to search,” says Mastroianni. “Unclaimed-funds websites often ask a series of questions and then require payment of a fee, or an agreement to share of the reclaimed money upfront. I wanted to create a safe place where people could go safely and not get assaulted by ads or, worse, taken advantage of.” To raise awareness of escheatment, Mastroianni has worked with nonprofits to run “reverse fundraisers” where organizations educate donors on how to reclaim escheated funds. In turn, individuals will often contribute a portion back to the nonprofit. Mastroianni hopes his work will help send money to the people and causes that are entitled to it and need it most; as a nod to this mission, the logo for his site is the green cap of Robin Hood. “Our goal is to be like Robin Hood and his merry band,” he says. “We bring joy and splendor to the people who need it, and then move on, happy to have done our part.”