State use of outside lawyers queried
Courthouse case spawns high bills
A bitter dispute over cancer-causing asbestos at the Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse in Cambridge has cost taxpayers more than $325,000 in legal fees because the state hired an outside law firm to fight courthouse employees who have demanded they be relocated.
Since the feud erupted in late 2004, the Romney administration has paid Goulston and Storrs, one of the biggest firms in Massachusetts, $325,191 to represent it in hearings before a bar association committee investigating the problem, according to state records.
In addition, the state's top trial court judge, Robert A. Mulligan, had the firm hired last month to defend him in a lawsuit filed by angry courthouse workers who fear that exposure to asbestos fireproofing could cause health problems. Those legal fees were not available yet from the state.
Chris A. Milne, a Dover lawyer representing courthouse employees at no cost, predicted the state will end up paying the firm $1 million before the dispute is resolved, and he questioned whether it was legal to hire Goulston and Storrs in the first place.
A 2003 law that the Romney administration trumpeted as a way to save the state millions of dollars requires the executive branch to hire outside counsel through competitive bidding and to prove no other government lawyer can do the work. The state never did that, Milne said.
''Under what authority can they go out and hire private counsel?" he asked, referring to David B.
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, whose office typically defends state agencies in lawsuits, did provide a legal team to Mulligan when Milne filed a lawsuit April 7, prompting a court hearing that day. The suit accused Mulligan of breaking a promise not to do repairs that could dislodge asbestos in the 1969 building until occupants were moved.
But at two subsequent hearings before Justice John M. Greaney of the Supreme Judicial Court, which is handling the pending lawsuit, Mulligan has been primarily defended by high-priced Goulston and Storrs lawyers. Reilly's office remains co-counsel. Reilly named the private lawyers special assistant attorneys general, a practice typically used when the attorney general has a conflict of interest.
Kevin Flanigan, a spokesman for the capital asset management division, which reports to the governor, declined to comment Friday on the decision to hire Goulston and Storrs in 2004 instead of using lawyers from the division or another state department. He said the division will review the hiring to make sure it followed the law and will release its findings shortly.
The attorney general's office would not have represented the state in six fact-finding bar association hearings, which generated the $325,191 bill, according to First Assistant Attorney General Stephanie S. Lovell. Her office, she said, represents state agencies only when suits are filed. After Mulligan was sued, she said, he told her office that Goulston and Storrs was familiar with the dispute and should stay on the job.
Joan Kenney, a spokeswoman for Mulligan, said in an e-mail message that ''all the appropriate steps were followed" when Mulligan hired Goulston and Storrs to handle his lawsuit, filed last month. She declined to say why Mulligan needed private counsel in addition to the attorney general's office.
Richard M. Zielinski, one of the private lawyers representing Mulligan, did not return phone calls. The fees paid to the outside counsel -- which include $274,353 for Goulston and Storrs lawyers and $50,838 for expert witnesses who testified at the hearings -- angered Middlesex courthouse occupants, who are already fuming over conditions at the 22-story courthouse.
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, a candidate for attorney general and one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said she was ''surprised and disappointed that tax dollars are being paid in a matter that we've always thought didn't need to be adversarial." About 85 of the 300 courthouse employees work for her.
''Instead of putting energy into developing a plan that would allow for the removal of occupants in a safe way. . . efforts have been made to deny that there's a problem or to spend money in ways that aren't productive," she said.
The courthouse on Thorndike Street houses Middlesex Superior Court, Cambridge District Court, and the jail, in addition to the district attorney's office. Employees have long complained about the building's balky elevators, winter drafts, leaks, and summer swelters.
The complaints gained urgency in late 2004 after an occupational health specialist toured the building and identified what she called potentially hazardous asbestos in numerous locations. Milne hired the specialist after the state prepared to remove asbestos from the elevator shafts, a project then expected to cost about $14.3 million.
In January 2005, the Massachusetts trial attorneys' association voted to sue the state, if necessary, to force the evacuation of the building before renovations. But no suit was filed.
After the Massachusetts Bar Association hearings, Mulligan and Perini agreed last May to relocate all occupants before removing asbestos and renovating the courthouse.
Earlier this month, however, courthouse workers learned that state officials had done nine projects that could dislodge flaking asbestos since the May agreement and were planning more.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe .com. 
