Dear House Judiciary Committee: In Questioning William Barr, Employ the Ethics Complaint That 27 Distinguished DC Lawyers Filed Wednesday

FREDERICK BARON, DENNIS AFTERGUT, AUSTIN SARAT

Frederick Baron, former associate deputy attorney general and director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, and Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College, call upon the House Judiciary Committee to carefully read the ethics complaint by 27 distinguished DC lawyers against William Barr before questioning him today, July 28, 2020.

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Brooke v. State

Court: Montana Supreme Court

Citation: 2020 MT 187

Opinion Date: July 28, 2020

Judge: Mike McGrath

Areas of Law: Contracts, Government Contracts

The Supreme Court held that a provision in the Office of the State Public Defender's contract with private attorneys specifying that hourly compensation rates can unilaterally be changed by the State permits prospective changes in a contract attorney's compensation rate for existing cases. Appellants, private attorneys who contract with OPD to provide legal services for indigent clients, filed a class action complaint against the State, the Governor, and the Director of the Office of the State Public Defender (OPD) alleging that Defendants were liable for breach of contract or in violation of the Contract Clause stemming from the OPD's act of reducing rates for all contracted services and reducing pay for case-related travel. The district court granted the State's motion for summary judgment, ruling that the OPD did not breach its contract with Appellants because the contract specifically identified that the fee arrangement was subject to change by the Director. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that summary judgment was properly granted for the State.