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Use of outside counsel denied
Commissioners’ plan too costly, judge says
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge Maureen A. Sweeney, Mahoning County Common Pleas Court administrative judge, has overruled county commissioners’ resolution to hire a Columbus law firm to represent the commissioners and prosecutor before the Ohio Supreme Court.
Commissioners approved on Oct. 14 the hiring of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease to represent the board and Prosecutor Paul J. Gains and Assistant Prosecutor Gina Bricker, named as defendants in mandamus actions at the top court concerning a public-records request.
“The court finds the proposed hourly rate and suggested total expenditure for outside counsel proposed by the prosecutor to be excessive and unacceptable,” Judge Sweeney ruled Thursday.
Judge Sweeney also wrote that she should be the one to decide if outside lawyers are necessary, and to appoint them if she chooses to do so, and that local lawyers should be hired when independent lawyers are needed.
The commissioners’ resolution, passed 2-1 with Commissioner John A. McNally IV dissenting, called for hiring the lawyers at rates between $165 and $525 per hour and paralegals at between $110 and $230 per hour, not to exceed $50,000.
Saying he and Bricker are entitled to outside counsel because they are defendants in the mandamus actions, Gains said he plans to appeal Judge Sweeney’s decision to the 7th District Court of Appeals.
Atty. John F. McCaffery of Cleveland, who represents Cafaro Co. affiliates, filed the mandamus actions, asking the top court to compel the defendants to fulfill McCaffrey’s request for disclosure of what McCaffrey said are public records concerning Oakhill Renaissance Place.
McCaffrey protested Gains’ withholding of calendars of Gains, Bricker and Linette Stratford, another assistant county prosecutor, from Nov. 1, 2008, to the present, and Gains’ refusal to provide records of grand jury- related complaints generated by, or filed against, his office or staff.
Having delivered more than 8,000 pages in response to McCaffrey’s request, Gains said his office provided everything it believes it has that is subject to the public-records law.
McCaffrey is one of the lawyers representing Ohio Valley Mall Co. and The Marion Plaza Inc., both Cafaro Co. affiliates, in the Oakhill criminal conspiracy case. Eight defendants are accused of conspiring criminally to prevent or delay the move of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services from an Ohio Valley Mall property to the county-owned Oakhill.
McNally is one of those charged with conspiracy.
When he has perceived a conflict, Gains said he has always gone to the commissioners, and if they agreed with him, they have passed a resolution to hire outside lawyers, subject to approval by the administrative judge.
Gains said he doesn’t recall a judge ever before refusing his request for outside counsel in his 14 years as prosecutor.