Updated figures from the Illinois Department of Transportation show that outside lawyers hired to defend the agency in personnel disputes, including a series of 2004 layoffs, cost the state nearly $2.4 million.

The State Journal-Register reported last month that, after a federal jury in Peoria found in favor of 16 Republicans who said they had been fired because of political affiliation, legal costs to the state topped $1 million for that and related cases.

Those figures came from comptroller’s records that showed more than $790,000 in payments to HeplerBroom LLC, which has a Springfield office; and from the governor’s office, which paid more than $336,000 to a Chicago law firm, Novack Macey LLP, for response to subpoenas in the case, known as Whitlow vs. Martin.

Responding to an SJ-R request, IDOT last week produced lists of fees and expenses of two law firms, including HeplerBroom, that worked on such cases.

The Chicago firm of Jenner Block, which IDOT spokesman John Webber said had been the state’s outside specialist on cases related to the U.S. Supreme Court’s anti-patronage Rutan ruling for years, was paid more than $452,000 from September 2004 through June 2006 for work on a handful of cases including Whitlow. Webber said he’s not sure how much of the total went to Whitlow and a two other cases stemming from the same round of layoffs.

Those two cases, one brought by Ann Libri and another brought by Janice Draper and two others, were dismissed.

Defendant costs, too

Between May 2006 and October 2007, IDOT was represented directly by the Illinois attorney general’s office, the agency said. HeplerBroom was appointed by the attorney general in October 2007 to represent IDOT in the Whitlow, Libri and Draper cases. A fourth case was folded into the Whitlow case.

The list provided last week by IDOT includes vouchers through Jan. 14 showing that HeplerBroom was paid more than $1.9 million. Of that amount,

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/lsL3Qfz0VQU/Outside-attorneys-costly-to-the-state-in-personnel-disputes