California’s Department of Justice has taken a different approach to bringing in outside counsel to help with its entry in the climate litigation sweepstakes —a “Lawsuit [that] is potentially worth many billions of dollars.” Rather than granting a firm a ‘standard’ (i.e., potentially massive), ‘contingency‘ fee contract out of purported taxpayer damages (whether or not the firm has been shown as being financed by progressive foundations to bring these suits, as some AGs continue to do), it has chosen to bring on outside counsel for discrete periods of time and hourly work.
Here, no more than $1.5 million over a ten-month period.
Possibly to be revisited/renewed at some level given the scope of work.
Either way, the the California State Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges, and Hearing Officers in State Employment (CASE) sought State Personnel Board review of the decision. You can read the California DoJ’s response to the request for review, response to CASE’s opening brief, and evidence supporting its arrangement. CASE unsuccessfully appealed the Board’s decision.