SENATORS PUSH NIXON ON TOBACCO SETTLEMENT

The lawmakers want to know how much lawyers for the state are to be paid.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon continues to draw fire from a group of Republican state senators who want to know how much money will be pocketed by lawyers who represented the state in the tobacco settlement.

State Sens. Peter Kinder, Sarah Steelman, David Klarich, Steve Ehlmann and Bill Kenney in a July 23 letter requested information on the lawyers' fees.

Nixon has said the tobacco companies will pay the private lawyers hired by the state and that none of the money will come out of the $6.7 billion that Missouri could receive over the next 25 years.

In a letter drafted to Nixon this week, Kinder and the others asked the attorney general to detail the fees to be paid to Springfield trial lawyer Thomas Strong and other private lawyers who were hired to represent the state in the tobacco litigation.

"In short, our understanding is that you have no knowledge of how much fee is being requested by Mr. Strong and the attorneys working under his direction," the letter states.

The senators said it appears Nixon doesn't care if the lawyers' fees are reasonable or not.

The senators also have inquired about expenses incurred by Nixon's office prior to the hiring of private lawyers to handle the case.

Nixon spokeswoman Mary Still said Tuesday that the attorney general will ask the tobacco companies to pay legal expenses incurred by his office. Still said she didn't know how much money the attorney general would seek in reimbursement for in-house legal expenses.

The senators want to know where the tobacco companies will get the money to pay the lawyers.

"Is there anything in the settlement to assure that the increase of cigarette expenses, which are being exempted from anti-trust provisions, are not going to be used by the tobacco companies to pay the attorney fees and to enrich themselves in the process?" the letter asked.

Kinder on Tuesday said smokers, including those in Missouri, are paying the bill through a 45-cent hike in the price of a pack of cigarettes. "This is the largest legislated tax increase in the history of the United States," he said.

Kinder last August filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Nixon's hiring of outside lawyers to handle the state's tobacco case. A circuit judge upheld Nixon's action, but Kinder has appealed.

Kinder said the fees paid to the private lawyers should be disclosed to the public because those lawyers were working in behalf of the state.

But Still said the attorney general's office isn't involved in any fee arrangements that might be made between the private lawyers and the tobacco companies. Still also said none of the legal fees that the tobacco companies would pay to his office or the private lawyers would come out of the settlement to the state.

"We get that total amount, and the taxpayers do not have to pay for the attorneys, and that money does not come out of the settlement," she said.

"Peter Kinder did not like the fact we were successful and got the largest settlement in the history of this state," said Still.

She said Strong and other private lawyers had no assurance that they would win in court when they agreed to represent the state.

The private lawyers, she said, had to be prepared to put up $1 million of their own just to present the state's case.

"It wasn't a sure deal when we asked them to come forward," said Still.

Nixon hired Strong to handle the state's case on June 29, 1998. Strong then subcontracted some of the work to other lawyers.

The contract called for the lawyers to be paid between $200 and $250 an hour for the remainder of the year.

Starting this year, they would have shared in contingency fees that were estimated at $369 million to $429 million, assuming that Missouri won its case.

Still said the contract called for the lawyers to be paid an amount equal to 6 percent of a judgment or settlement. But the contract was terminated as part of the settlement, leaving it up to the lawyers and the tobacco companies to negotiate the fees.

Still said that arrangement was offered to all states involved in the settlement.

But Kinder argued that the lawyers aren't entitled to unreasonable fees. Missouri should determine the fees that will be paid to the lawyers that represented the state, he said.

"What's going down here is the biggest ripoff in 178 years of statehood in Missouri," said Kinder.