Kentucky

This past week I received an email annoucing the judiciary's participation in the open government portal documenting various expenses of the three branches of government.

I was curious how the data base worked and what kind of information was available.  So, I wondered how much our judiciary (which has a lot of lawyers in its employ) paid to outside counsel to do their legal work.  I was suprised at how much the state has a whole paid for outside legal services, and the Judicial Cabinet in particular (which is somewhat lower than I had expected).  Considering that many of these counsel may well appear in cases before the various courts of the Commonwealth, to include the Supreme Court of Kentucky and the Court of Appeals some opposing counsel in disputes might want to know who the state is hiring and whether or not that might pose a potential conflict in particular cases depending on the issues involved.

For example,  Judicial Cabinet spent over $444,000 for legal expenses to outside counsel in 2009, and are up to $215,496 for 2010.  Of course, be careful on your search criteria and codes as a few of my searches did not produce the expected results.  Also, the site is not too forgiving as a return to prior window does not reproduce the prior search information.

Below are the legal expenses from 1099's for the state as a whole and the judicial department in particular:

2010

• State: $6,905,310.18
• Judicial Cabinet:  $215,496.50

2009

• State: $14,755,698.98
• Judicial Cabinet: $444,309.19

2008

• State: $15,479,284.47
• Judicial Cabinet:  $211,465.97

2007

• State: $12,702,399.71
• Judicial Cabinet:  $199,503.97

Just to see how the data base worked, I followed one of the firms - Graydon Head & Richey for 2009 and 2010.   Graydon Head & Richey has billed the state in 1099 reports for legal services provided in the amount of $249,259.08 (which crosses into two fiscal years but a single calendar year).  For fiscal year 2010, their legal fees billed to the Judicial Cabinet was $108,805.59 of the total $215,496.50.

When I clicked on the link, this is the table that was produced:

I then did a search using Google (tm) to locate what the firm may have been doing for the Judicial Cabinet and whether or not it was newsworthy.  Turns out I had forgotten, that Attorney William G. Giesen with Graydon Head & Richey was the attorney hired by the AOC to carry out an intensive review of courthouse construction projects bonding issues. See, eg., COURTS: AOC Courthouse Construction Program Under In-House Audit by CJ Minton; others wanted state auditor Luallen.

Here is a list of those with 1099's with the Judicial Cabinet for 2010: