Legal News

Arizona Only $575-an-Hour Away From Paying Ken Starr?s Fee

By Ashby Jones

Update: Friday afternoon, we received a call from Barrett Marson, the communications director for the Arizona House of Representatives. He alerted us that the legislature has, in fact, hired Ken Starr, but has yet to secure the extra $575 per-hour-funding needed to pay his fee — though he hopes it will be secured soon. “It’s a lot of money for Arizona to spend,” said Marson, “but we absolutely think someone of Mr. Starr’s caliber is worth it.” The original post is below.

Arizona Republican legislative leaders have themselves a bit of a conundrum: They’d reportedly like to hire Ken Starr to handle a Supreme Court appeal, but they’re not sure if they can afford Starr, the former Whitewater prosecutor and current dean at Pepperdine’s School of Law. The state’s Department of Administration (now there’s an Orwellian name if we’ve ever heard of one) has decided it will only pay Starr up to $335 an hour. But Starr, who also serves in an “of counsel” position at Kirkland & Ellis’s Los Angeles office, charges $910 an hour. Here are stories from the AP via law.com and LegalNewsline.

“Right now everything is up in the air,” House Speaker Jim Weiers said Wednesday. Weiers, a Republican from Phoenix, said he hoped ultimately to get a different decision from the holders of the purse-strings in the Grand Canyon state. “It kind of boggles my mind that they’re trying to be penny wise and pound foolish at this point,” Weiers said. “With Ken Starr, I’m kind of perplexed.”

The suit at issue was filed way back in 1992. It charged the state was not providing enough money to help students who speak another language. Federal District Court Judge Raner Collins ruled that state English-as-a-second-language funding falls short. The state appealed and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. The Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear the case.

The Department of Administration’s Ray DiCiccio defended the $335-an-hour appropriation. “Each party should be able to select the counsel of their choice in this matter and Risk Management is willing to pay reasonable fees for those services.”

But for all those fretting over whether Starr has enough Supreme Court work to stay busy, fret not. VSP Vision Care recently hired Starr to handle its appeal to the high court over its tax-exempt status.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 18, 2008 (boomark / email).