Outgoing Dem AG Richard Cordray Sending $4.1 Million In State Contracts To Law Firms: Cincinnati Gets Small Slice Of Special Counsel Deals

Sugar Plums For Upstate Law Firms

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- For Cincinnati lawyers, it's not the dance of the sugar plum fairy.  Most of the unbid special counsel work is headed to law firms in Cleveland and Columbus.  Only two Cincinnati firms -- with $315,000 total -- are on the list of retroactive and renewed contracts.  The deals have been submitted to the State Controlling Board for approval at its last meeting of the year.  It is also the last session with Democrats in control of state government.  Richard Cordray was beaten by Republican Mike DeWine, and the special counsel contracts  -- if approved -- will be in force during much of 2011.  In the past, special counsel contracts have been a political plum for the attorney general, and often controversial.  Not this time, at least not yet.  Traditional campaign fodder includes accusations of lawyers making political contributions in exchange for work -- something that did not occur during Cordray's brief tenure.  He was elected to replace Marc Dann, who resigned in a sex scandal.  Cordray finished out Dann's unexpired term.

In Cincinnati, Ulmer & Berne is getting a $175,000 increase in its contract to represent the University of Cincinnati in construction litigation matters.  The current contract is for $75,000,  Ulmer & Berne is a downtown firm with 336 employees in Ohio.  State records show 8% are minorities and 50% are women.  Wood Herron & Evans, another downtown law firm, is set to receive a $200,000 increase to handle patent matters for Ohio State University.  Its current contract is worth $60,000.  State records show Wood Herron has 112 Ohio employees -- 6% are minorities, 50% women.

Ohio Atty. Gen. Marc Dann: High Praise From Unlikely Quarter

COLUMBUS (TDB) -- The American Tort Reform Association is a lobbying organization funded largely by corporations, insurors and business groups who believe the U.S. economic climate has been harmed by overzealous plaintiff lawyers and a legal system that is stacked to favor victims. It has also been concerned about state attorney generals who are becoming activists in the cause of consumer and stockholder rights, or cracking down on environmental and health hazards -- think lead paint -- through litigation. ATRA, as the group is widely known, is no friend to the plaintiff's bar.

And today, ATRA is out with a broadside aimed at state attorney generals who have been "hiring personal injury lawyers from the private sector to perform legal work for the state, and hundreds of millions of dollars in contingency fees are sometimes at stake." Sherman Joyce, ATRA's executive director, is pushing a national Transparency Code to expose how those contracts are handed out in all 50 states. Joyce outlined the code in a column for the the National Law Journal, and said there is too much secrecy in the selection process.

But he had praise for Ohio's Democratic Atty. Gen. Marc Dann. However, his kind words about Dann cannot be found on ATRA's Web site or in the National Law Journal column. The Daily Bellwether spotted them in a PR Newswire press release from ATRA that specifically cited Dann as a national leader in opening up the process of employing outside counsel. It was a campaign promise that Dann made while running for attorney general in 2006, and now he's gotten kudos from an unexpected corner for living up to his promise. Joyce said:

"Ohio already has one of the most robust public records laws in the nation, and Attorney General Marc Dann has voluntarily embraced the idea of competitive bidding. These are both examples that other states and AGs could follow and build on. If AGs are to be successful in pursuing the public interest, they must have the full confidence of the citizenry. Transparency and accountability are the foundations of such confidence."

ATRA says its Transparency Code "encompasses the good government principles of public disclosure, competitive bidding, oversight and fiscal accountability." A link to the press release that praises Dann is here.

A. G. Marc Dann: Asks ???s About Outside Counselors

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Attorney General Marc Dann has been in office for less than a week and he's already started auditing the use of "outside counsel," the practice of hiring private law firms and lawyers to represent state government in legal matters, often at prices of $200 to $250 an hour. It's a nice source of business and money for the legal profession in Ohio, and lawyers have often been reliable suppliers of campaign contributions that never, never, never are connected to receiving state business.

Dann said there are more than 160 firms handling nearly 700 matters. He said he wants to know more about them, including the curriculum vitae of every attorney, paralegal and employee who bills work to the state.

Under Ohio law, none of that legal work had to be bid out competitively. Agencies get to pick their special counsel and determine the price, provided the attorney general agreed and the Controlling Board voted the money.

Dann said he wants to "initiate a process that is free of even the perception of favoritism in the way we award special counsel contracts from this point forward."

He's made a good start. It's probably causing more chills than a winter breeze. Members of the bar could be wondering if the patronage money taps are going to dry up. But why not go a step farther? Dann should consider moving more legal work in-house. Why not beef up the attorney general's staff of lawyers? At the federal level, hardly any work is done by lawyers who are not employees of the U.S. Department of Justice or federal agencies.

In Ohio, I know Democratic lawyers who were special counsel for Lee Fisher when he was a.g in the 1990s. They made contributions. To keep the work, they made donations to his successor, Betty Montgomery, a Republican. And when she left, they wrote checks to the campaign fund of Jim Petro. It was S.O.P.

Then, there were out-of-state lawyers who wound up getting state business. Some were supporters of former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who wound up handling election law matters. One of them represented Terry Schiavo's family in the lawsuit to keep the Florida woman alive.

Dann, a Democrat, said Thursday he's started a ''thorough and comprehensive review" of outside law firms that have state contracts. His statement is available here.