Lawmakers expressed concerns about the cost of litigation involving the Alabama Department of Corrections.
Corrections made up 31 of the 43 legal services agreements listed on Thursday's Contract Review Committee agenda. Those contracts amounted to almost $16 million, or about 88% of the $18.2 million awarded to vendors by different state agencies. Bill Lunsford, an attorney with Butler Snow in Montgomery, received DOC contracts worth $14.9 million in the docket.
"A lot of these cases, damages and systemic appropriation cases, have overlapping fact patterns, overlapping claims," said Mandy Speirs, assistant general counsel for the Alabama Department of Corrections. "If we parcel it out to different attorneys for each one, we would have duplicative efforts and cost the state more money because we are having to do the same depositions twice, the same litigation twice, because we would have different attorneys."
(READ MORE: Alabama Department of Corrections' internal execution review draws criticism)
The committee approved the contracts. But Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, said the ongoing — and increasing — costs of DOC litigation concerned him.
"Lunsford is basically a government agency at this point," he said.
Sen. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, the chair of the committee, said in an interview after the meeting the legal contracts are effectively continuations of existing contracts.
"The lead attorney changed firms," he said. "We discussed multiple ways to handle some...
Detroit man admitted preparing false returns that generated millions in claims. A Detroit man has pleaded guilty to taking part in a tax fraud scheme that resulted in more than $7 million in false...