Mathew Tully returns to Tully Rinckey law firm following military retirement

SYRACUSE — Tully Rinckey PLLC Founding Partner Mathew B. Tully has returned to his law firm after taking military leave in early 2012 to serve as a lieutenant colonel in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tully retakes the reins at the multi-million law firm, based in Albany with an office in Syracuse, that is substantially larger than when he left for military duty, Tully Rinckey said in a news release.

Tully’s return to the law firm marks a new stage in his legal career and the end of a distinguished military career that spanned nearly two decades, the firm said. On May 5, he was medically retired from the U.S. Army, following a long recovery from injuries he sustained during a suicide bomber attack involving a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (or VBIED) on Aug. 7, 2012. As a result of his service in Afghanistan, Tully was awarded the Combat Action Badge in May 2012, the Purple Heart in September 2012, and Bronze Star in February 2013.

Having previously been deployed to Iraq in 2005 and Egypt in 2007, this is not the first time Tully has returned to his law firm after completing his military duty, the news release noted. Unlike his prior returns to the firm, he is now among the tens of thousands of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom who are transitioning back to civilian life while dealing with a service-connected disability. Tully has also permanently returned to civilian life, having ended a military career that began in 1991 when he first put on a military uniform as a part of Hofstra University’s Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) program.

Tully has also returned to a law firm that has grown considerably since his departure. In Tully’s absence, Tully Rinckey Managing Partner Greg T. Rinckey handled the day-to-day affairs of the firm. It now has six offices, compared to the three it had when Tully went to Afghanistan. While he was on active duty, the law firm’s revenue grew by 49.1 percent in 2013, the release stated.

In April, Tully Rinckey relocated its K Street office in Washington, D.C. to a recently redeveloped LEED-Platinum certified building a block away from the White House.

Shortly after Tully survived the suicide-bomber attack, Tully Rinckey opened its second upstate New York office in Syracuse on Aug. 30, 2012.

The firm went on to open offices in Buffalo in January, 2013 and Rochester in July, 2013. Tully Rinckey says it plans to relocate its downtown Buffalo location to a considerably larger office within the next two months. This new office is about five times larger than the space it currently occupies in the city. Firmwide, Tully Rinckey employs more than 120 people, including nearly 60 attorneys.

The news release stated that Tully has dedicated his legal career to strengthening the employment rights of service members through his pioneering Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) litigation. USERRA protects civilian job rights and benefits for veterans and members of the active and reserve components of the U.S. armed forces.

Although Tully returned to the United States from Afghanistan in early fall 2012, he remained on active duty as he recovered from his injuries. He initially received treatment at a Wounded Warrior Unit in Fort Benning, Ga. and later at another Wounded Warrior Unit in Concord, Mass. He was prohibited from working in a civilian capacity until his medical retirement took effect in May.