Legal Fees

The Anne Arundel County measure that could have required County Executive John R. Leopold to repay his legal expenses was withdrawn Monday night before it came to a vote. County Councilman Jamie Benoit, the sponsor, said he plans to let the state deal with the question of forcing public officials to repay taxpayers when a politician's actions put the government on the losing end of a lawsuit. The withdrawn legislation by Benoit, a Democrat from Crownsville, was similar to a state bill proposed by Sen. Bryan Simonaire, a Republican from Pasadena.

Dan Rodricks ' column was on target ("To monitor farm pollution, use drones," March 24). Why should the Maryland taxpayers pay the legal fees of Alan Hudson? Is this the new norm, to pay for legal fees when the state of Maryland isn't even a party to the case? The Hudson family is hardly blameless with respect to managing their farm in an environmentally responsible way to protect the Chesapeake Bay. This case is not the General Assembly's business. Are they now going to approve cases the University of Maryland School of Law decides to pursue?

A state senator wants a new law to compel Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold to repay his taxpayer-funded defense if found guilty in a pending discrimination case. Sen. Bryan Simonaire announced Monday that state bill drafters are crafting legislation that would require elected local and state officials to refund taxpayers for legal fees and court awards when guilty in criminal or civil cases. Simonaire said he requested "The Taxpayer Protection Act" after Leopold, a fellow Republican, did not publicly pledge to repay the tab of a $450-an-hour attorney hired by the county.

Nobody asked me, but here are my six recommendations in the matter of the highly publicized, closely watched, widely criticized, rift-causing lawsuit brought by the Waterkeeper Alliance against the Hudson family poultry farm over alleged pollution in a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on Maryland's Eastern Shore: •Everybody calm down, starting with the Maryland General Assembly. Already, the House of Delegates has authorized $300,000 — taxpayer dollars — for the legal fees of Alan Hudson, the farmer.

Advice from the state attorney general has forced Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to abandon his vow to keep private how much quasi-public agencies such as the Baltimore Development Corporation spend on lawyers. But the mayor is still trying to circumvent public disclosure laws by refusing to include loan transaction fees in his promised report. Mr. Schmoke must have the best interests of his lawyer friends in mind, not the public.Companies that receive loans from quasi-public agencies such as BDC and the Community Development Finance Corporation are required to pay the legal fees associated with preparing the loan documents.

City Council President Mary Pat Clarke called on Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday to divulge all the legal fees that have been paid to a closely connected Baltimore law firm.Mrs. Clarke, who is running against the mayor in September's Democratic primary, said Baltimore taxpayers should be told exactly how much Shapiro and Olander receives for representing the city and its quasi-public agencies.Mrs. Clarke was quick to respond to a report in The Sun yesterday that revealed that Shapiro and Olander, a downtown law firm with strong ties to Mr. Schmoke, had collected at least $1.4 million for city-related legal work in the past 3 1/2 years.

A bigger load of foster-care cases and other lawsuits this year has forced the Carroll County Department of Social Services to ask the state and county for help in paying legal costs.The department had been projecting a deficit of $75,000 in legal fees for the 1990-1991 fiscal year ending next June 30, but will get somemoney from the state Department of Human Resources to offset that, said M.Alexander Jones, director of the local DSS office on Distillery Drive.Jones told the board of directors yesterday that his office has a budget of $46,750 for legal expenses, but is already spending at a rate of $10,000 a month.

Anne Arundel County's former police chief, who retired to end a criminal investigation into his conduct, unsuccessfully lobbied the county to pay his $40,000 legal tab. The county denied Chief James Teare Sr.'s request, arguing that his expenses did not qualify for a fund designed to protect innocent employees from legal bills. According to a letter obtained Thursday by The Baltimore Sun, Teare's attorney said the legal fees were incurred as Teare defended himself in the investigation of County Executive John R. Leopold's use of a police security detail.

Clint Eastwood's lawyers have been awarded $653,156 in legal fees incurred in the actor's lawsuit against the National Enquier, in which a jury found the weekly tabloid had printed a bogus interview.The Enquirer was ordered to pay Mr. Eastwood $150,000 last October after a federal jury found it had knowingly printed an "interview" the actor-director never gave.The Enquirer claimed it bought the interview from a free-lance reporter and printed it in good faith. But the jury found that the tabloid either ignored signs the interview was fraudulent or failed with due diligence to check.

Moving to quell the controversy about the money paid to the politically connected law firm of Shapiro and Olander, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke vowed yesterday to provide "the most extensive disclosure of law fees that this city has ever seen."But the mayor made clear that he intended to continue to keep secret the fees law firms collect from the clients of the city's quasi-public agencies for preparing loan documents and helping with other business matters.Mr. Schmoke said his administration would prepare a report detailing the amount of money paid in his second term to each law firm representing the city and its quasi-public agencies.

With only minor changes, the House of Delegates on Wednesday gave initial approval to Gov. Martin O'Malley's $37 billion budget, the governor's first spending plan in several years that doesn't propose significant cuts. While a final vote in the House is expected Friday, Wednesday's actions signaled the last cuts the chamber will make before the budget proposal moves to the Senate. Delegates cut about $80 million in state spending, scaling back one of O'Malley's initiatives to improve digital learning in classrooms and nixing another that would have created a $5 million fund for innovative ideas.

In a widely watched case on the Eastern Shore, federal judge William Nickerson ruled Thursday that Alan and Kristin Hudson's Berlin farm was not in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. The plaintiffs, the Waterkeeper Alliance led by controversial environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had hoped to establish that big food processors, in this case Perdue Inc., could be held liable for the alleged pollution sins of "contract growers" like the Hudson...

The Anne Arundel County measure that could have required County Executive John R. Leopold to repay his legal expenses was withdrawn Monday night before it came to a vote. County Councilman Jamie Benoit, the sponsor, said he plans to let the state deal with the question of forcing public officials to repay taxpayers when a politician's actions put the government on the losing end of a lawsuit. The withdrawn legislation by Benoit, a Democrat from Crownsville, was similar to a state bill proposed by Sen. Bryan Simonaire, a Republican from Pasadena.

Weeks after being publicly pressured to repay legal fees, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold announced Wednesday that he will pay back taxpayers if he loses a pending sex discrimination case brought by a former employee. The private, $450-an-hour attorney hired to represent Leopold ran up a $21,000 tab to taxpayers during two weeks in August, raising questions about whether the embattled executive should accept a defense on the public dime. A Republican state lawmaker publicly called on Leopold, a Republican, to promise to repay the rising costs if found guilty, but Leopold answered with an Oct. 1 letter calling Sen. Bryan Simonaire a hypocrite.

A state senator wants a new law to compel Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold to repay his taxpayer-funded defense if found guilty in a pending discrimination case. Sen. Bryan Simonaire announced Monday that state bill drafters are crafting legislation that would require elected local and state officials to refund taxpayers for legal fees and court awards when guilty in criminal or civil cases. Simonaire said he requested "The Taxpayer Protection Act" after Leopold, a fellow Republican, did not publicly pledge to repay the tab of a $450-an-hour attorney hired by the county.

A state has challenged Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold, a fellow Republican, to repay taxpayers if he loses a gender discrimination case that in two weeks rang up more than $21,000 legal fees. Leopold neither promised nor refused to repay the costs of defending him, but attacked the lawmaker for questioning his fiscal stewardship. Sen. Bryan Simonaire said Tuesday that he wanted to "help restore the trust" of county residents frustrated by the criminal indictment of Leopold, the conviction of a county councilman on a tax charge, and the two federal discrimination lawsuits pending against the county executive.

More questions have been raised than answered by the report on legal fees paid to non-staff attorneys that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has finally made public. The mayor may have fulfilled his promise to provide "the most extensive disclosure of law fees that this city has ever seen," but the inch-thick report doesn't include enough information to be called "full disclosure."The report reveals which law firms have been retained by the city from Jan. 1, 1991, to June 30, 1995. But there is not enough detail about the the legal work performed to tell whether the fees were reasonable or whether expertise beyond the scope of the city legal department was necessary.

Tom J. Billman, the convicted financier whose attempts to hide millions in Europe were exposed two weeks ago by federal prosecutors, is asking the U.S. government to help pay his legal fees.In court filings, the former chairman of Bethesda-based Community Savings and Loan says he has more than $6.5 million in cash, gems and other assets, much of it frozen by the Austrian government.But Billman, who is awaiting sentencing on a fraud conviction, claims that he is impoverished and asks for a court-appointed, government-paid lawyer.

Anne Arundel County's former police chief, who retired to end a criminal investigation into his conduct, unsuccessfully lobbied the county to pay his $40,000 legal tab. The county denied Chief James Teare Sr.'s request, arguing that his expenses did not qualify for a fund designed to protect innocent employees from legal bills. According to a letter obtained Thursday by The Baltimore Sun, Teare's attorney said the legal fees were incurred as Teare defended himself in the investigation of County Executive John R. Leopold's use of a police security detail.