By Cindi Andrews
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Lawyer Tom Gabelman has been representing Hamilton County on matters related to riverfront development for several years. Eight law firms have been paid almost $7 million since the county first decided to replace Cinergy Field with two new stadiums. The Cincinnati Enquirer/STEVEN M. HERPPICH

Forget Ken Griffey Jr. and Jon Kitna. The only consistent winners in Hamilton County's two new sports stadiums have been lawyers.

Eight law firms have been paid almost $7 million since the county first decided to replace Cinergy Field with separate riverfront stadiums for the Cincinnati Bengals and Cincinnati Reds.

And more than a year after the first pitch was thrown at Great American Ball Park, the legal bills keep piling up on a range of riverfront-related lawsuits.

County officials say the money has been well spent on law firms that have negotiated and monitored a tangle of agreements with the sports teams, riverfront landowners, construction companies and the city of Cincinnati.

But Auditor Dusty Rhodes, a frequent critic of county spending, says it's time to call an end to the game. The county administration, he says, has grown too dependent on private attorneys for work that the prosecutor's office could do or that doesn't require lawyers.

"It seems like what you've got here is an ever-expanding mission," Rhodes says. "I don't think we're serving the taxpayer well by operating an employment agency for attorneys."

Getting outside help

The prosecutor's office represents county officeholders. It has about two dozen lawyers who handle civil matters on a $4.5 million annual budget. When the prosecutor's office concludes it doesn't have the expertise or time to handle certain complex cases, it recommends that commissioners hire private legal counsel.

That can be an expensive decision: county attorneys make an average of $37.61 an hour, versus rates of $200-plus an hour for private lawyers.

Commissioners Todd Portune and Phil Heimlich, while generally pleased with the work of the private lawyers, are considering changing how the county hires law firms to make sure they're getting the most for their money.

Portune would like the county to take bids on legal work, just as it would on road construction or food service at the jail, to ensure it gets the cheapest and best deal.

The prosecutor's office thinks that's a bad idea.

"Legal work generally isn't bid for the same reason you wouldn't take bids if you needed surgery - you'd want the best person for the job," said Carl Stich, chief of the prosecutor's civil division.

Local firm praised

The $6.8 million spent on riverfront-related legal work from the mid-1990s through 2003 amounts to less than 1 percent of the $750 million bill for the two stadiums.

Almost two-thirds of the stadium and riverfront work - $4.3 million - has gone to Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease, a downtown Cincinnati law firm.

Tom Gabelman, a partner at Vorys, started as one of several attorneys helping the county buy pieces of land for Paul Brown Stadium. After problems on the football stadium project culminated in $51 million in cost overruns, county commissioners and the prosecutor's office decided one firm should handle all future riverfront-related issues.

Vorys got the job because of Gabelman's experience and his expertise in construction law.

"He's probably the best in the city when it comes to this," says Mike Sieving, whom the county hired in 2000 to oversee the riverfront projects. "The guy has paid for himself exponentially."

Sieving estimates Gabelman saved the county $10 million to $20 million on Great American Ball Park by negotiating better deals with contractors. His analysis also steered the county away from risky financing plans for the proposed Banks development on the riverfront, Portune says.

"Vorys has been very, very strong on behalf of the county," Portune says. "I think having good legal work done on the front end is a much better investment than having to clean up messes on the back end.''

Gabelman said his involvement in all aspects of the projects have been key to his success in holding down costs and avoiding problems.

"We very much get into the business aspects of a deal, the financial aspects," Gabelman said.

The Indianapolis-based law firm of Ice Miller has run up the second-steepest legal tab trying to collect some of the $51 million in cost overruns during Paul Brown Stadium construction. The county has paid Ice Miller $1.2 million over three years.

Ice Miller sent the architect, Los Angeles-based NBBJ Architecture, a letter 18 months ago demanding reimbursement of nearly $45 million.

Ice Miller attorneys are coming to Cincinnati on Monday to update the commissioners. Stich said he expects their work to result in either a settlement or a lawsuit by the end of the year. Rhodes is skeptical.

"The Ice Miller thing is merely a cover and a window-dressing because the county overspent on the stadium by $50 million," Rhodes said.

New legal challenges

Portune and Heimlich, the two newest commissioners, may have reservations about how lawyers are retained, but they have hired their own over the objections of the prosecutor's office.

The commissioners recently hired the Cincinnati law firms of Stanley Chesley and Robert Furnier to sue the Bengals and the National Football League for up to $600 million.

The attorneys agreed their salary will be one-fourth to one-third of any money they recover. Taxpayers are on the hook for up to $100,000 in expenses, however. And if the county ever backs out of the case, the attorneys can collect three times their normal salary.

That arrangement gives the attorneys too much control and could cost the county millions of dollars, Prosecutor Mike Allen warned.

He is appealing the hiring, saying he wants an outside law firm to assess the county's chances of winning before joining a year-old federal case against the Bengals.

The lawsuit, originated by Portune as an individual taxpayer, alleges the team and the league illegally used their power as a monopoly to force construction of a new stadium with generous lease terms.

The terms of the agreement were negotiated on behalf of the county by Rudnick & Wolfe, a Chicago law firm. Legal cost to the county: $672,002.

Stich said the county was in a "terrible bargaining position'' with the team as it developed a stadium deal. Passage of the sales tax increase to pay for two new stadiums was, he said, a mandate to do what was necessary to keep the Bengals in Cincinnati.

"How can you negotiate a good deal when you can't walk away from the table?" Stich said.

Making changes

The county commissioners don't appear close to shutting down any of the legal work, but they are considering changes in how they hire private attorneys.

The practice of picking attorneys whom the prosecutor's office knows can lead to less scrutiny of their work and their bills, Portune said.

Portune and Heimlich didn't shop around when they hired Chesley and Furnier, a University of Cincinnati law school classmate of Portune's. Portune defended the decision.

He said Furnier was already handling his taxpayer lawsuit against the Bengals, and the county needed to act quickly.

How might the selection process of lawyers change?

Portune and Heimlich have lawyer Bill Markovits looking into the issue for them - at a cost of $175 an hour.

E-mail candrews@enquirer.com