A $30,000 an Hour Attorney? Palin Report Overstates Inquiries' Costs

[Hissyspit]

Source: Anchorage Daily News

Posted on Friday, July 10, 2009

A $30,000 an hour attorney? Palin report overstates inquiries' costs

By Sean Cockerham | Anchorage Daily News
There's some double counting and other problems with a spreadsheet outlining $1.9 million in state costs for ethics complaints, public records requests and lawsuits directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The administrative director in the governor's office, Linda Perez, conceded that some costs were counted twice and said "the total cost is overstated by $26,849." She said she missed that the Department of Law's updated numbers included costs that were already counted.

"It was my error . . . mea culpa," said Perez, who has worked for governors of both parties since the 1980s. Perez said she's going to ask the Department of Law about some other puzzling parts of the spreadsheet, including a line item that says 0.3 attorney hours added up to $10,063 in costs. That would add up to an attorney billing of over $30,000 an hour, and Perez said the flat billing rate the state uses for its attorneys is $121.98 an hour. Perez said she would check and see what costs beyond the staff time went into that calculation of over $10,000 in costs.

There are also discrepancies between two pages provided by the administration detailing attorney hours on ethics complaints. For example, one sheet lists 119.4 attorney hours adding up to $14,564.41 for work on an ethics complaint, but the other page says it was 13.3 attorney hours adding up to almost the same amount, $14,565, for work on that same "Troopergate" related complaint.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/310/story/71675.html

[tomm2thumbs]

1. damn, thems good salaries nt

[orleans]

2. "A $30,000 an hour attorney"???

if there is such a person out there i believe it just might be the man/woman i could talk myself into marrying.

[ShockediSay]

17. Whaddya think lobby lawyers make

for bribery & extortion against the will of the majority IMHO ?

Not for nothin was Daschele & Tauzin minting millions IMHO

[indimuse]

3. oops!

:eyes:

[rollingrock]

4. Nice

sounds like a nice way of scoring some juicy kickbacks with taxpayer dollars.

[No Elephants]

5. Is that what Dummya meant by "fuzzy math?"

[safeinOhio]

6. ethics complaints lead to

a new set of ethics complaints. She can't buy a break.

[Demit]

7. She can't not lie, more like. It's second nature to her.

I imagine now she'll complain about the fact-checking as more media persecution. She's a perpetual motion machine.

[BadDonkey]

8. dupe

[BadDonkey]

9. I am soooooooo sick of hearing about Palin...

I would rather sit through another three weeks of Jackson coverage and a ten part miniseries on Tori Spelling that have to listen to the indicipherable shrieks from this creature from the deep and/or her idiot spokespersons.

[Frank Booth]

13. Just wait till she's our President.

This is nothing. Soon enough we'll all be forced to salute her picture every morning.

[BadDonkey]

15. that sound you just heard was the sound of my head exploding.

[shadowknows69]

10. He's not worth the money if he keeps letting her speak in public

Talk about a person who digs a hole deeper with every word of her shovel shaped tongue.

[DFW]

11. $30 K an hour?

For that price, you should get the ghosts of Johnnie Cochran, Daniel Webster and Max Steuer, and get Perry Mason thrown in for free.

[TankLV]

12. YOU just haven't needed an attorney lately & gotten their BILL!!!

Especially the first one that says "Sorry I can't help you" and the SECOND BILL for EVEN MORE for DISCUSSING THEIR BILL with them!!!

(and yes, I actually got billed for asking an attorney about his bill!!!)

[olddad56]

14. Spunds like something is unethical about this.

[truthisfreedom]

16. That bitch is nothing but bad news.

She's a train wreck that just keeps piling up.

[northofdenali]

18. K&R Hissy. Following is a quote and link from my local newspaper.

They are notoriously right-wing, and very repuke-oriented. That's why this editorial, by Managing Editor Rod Boyce (whom I know personally, and who is an excellent writer/businessman, even if he is wrongheaded politically)is such a huge surprise:

http://newsminer.com/news/2009/jul/11/palin-dodged-open-discussion/

FAIRBANKS — I had written a column that was just about ready for publication when Gov. Sarah Palin derailed it last week with news of her resignation. The column was about my frustrating and fruitless campaign of the past seven months to have the governor speak to the editorial board of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

I figured the column wasn’t needed any more. Sarah Palin will soon be out of office, 18 months ahead of schedule and of her own choosing, so why bother. And on Monday came the final word, after half a year’s worth of my hopeful cajoling, that Gov. Palin wouldn’t have anything to say to us. “That is correct — she will not be meeting with the board. I apologize for all of the back and forth,” came the e-mail from her spokeswoman.

And yet I have been reading these past several days that Sarah Palin is alive on Twitter and Facebook, maligning the media in her tweets and posts. She won’t meet with us, but she sure will bash us.

Much more at the link. Alaskans are also very fed up with this raving maniac. She was here in Fairbanks yesterday, on KUAC radio with - of all disgusting assholes - Ted Nugent. Why? She importantly said she was signing a "critical Second Amendment bill". The bill? It wasn't one. It was a resolution passed by the state legislature, and doesn't require or even need a signature from the governor, it certainly isn't critical as all it does is extend the amount of time for renewal of your concealed carry permit, and all callers to the show were strongly screened so no critics were allowed.

She is a liar, a quitter, a cheat and a media whore. Nuff said.

Oh, yea, :hi: Hissy! Haven't yakked with you lately! Miss you! :hug::pals::hug: