It wasn’t pay to play. It was more like pay a pal. So went the outlandish deal attorney General Hector Balderas pulled off for his favorite law firm–Robles Rael & Anaya (RAR)–before he headed for the exits and became president at Northern NM College.
It was a deal that lets RAR and two other law firms pocket $148 million or 33 percent of a $453 million settlement with Walgreens over state opioid abuses. That’s three times the 12 percent fees other states paid their lawyers in their major pharmacy lawsuits, as reported by Legal Newsline back in June.
The AG’s office said the money will be split between local and state governments over the next 15 years. If the payout was 12 percent the state would have nearly $100 million more to combat opioid addiction.
Attorney Luis Robles said at the time of the settlement: No amount of money will bring back the lives lost and ruined because of the over-prescription of prescription opioids. With the Walgreens settlement and others, the State of New Mexico can ramp up its efforts to redress the ravages which the opioids crisis brought to our state.
Earlier this year WalletHub ranked NM the worst in the nation for drug abuse, a ranking earned in part by an unmet need to treat addiction. Is it a bridge too far to ask RAR and the other firms to donate
some of their settlement money to the fund set up to treat addiction in the state that has given them so much.
Ethics Question
In what appears to be a day late and a dollar short, the state Ethics Commission says contingency fee contracts with no caps–like the one Balderas awarded RAR–should come under regulations in the state procurement code that are meant to prevent over the top fees. Current AG Raul Torrez ran for the office in ’22 in part on what he said were too many law firms getting big legal contracts after making campaign donations, many from out of state.
In the Walgreens case it was a local firm getting an eyebrow raising deal with Marcus Rael, Jr. of the Robles firm being a BFF of Balderas.
Torrez’s office says he will rein in such deals under his watch but seemed to leave himself wiggle room: While AG Torrez was obligated to honor the commitments made by his predecessor for the fees. . .he has also instituted a new policy that sets strict limits on contingency fee cases. . .and will follow the practice of other state attorneys general in relying on in-house attorneys as local counsel whenever possible. The conclusion reached by the (Ethics) Commission represents a substantial change in how state agencies have historically contracted for legal services and may hinder the state’s ability to secure specialized legal representation when a case involves proprietary information or information that would jeopardize impending litigation if publicly revealed through the procurement process. Nevertheless, the Attorney General supports the goals of transparency and fairness in state contracts.
So in lawyerese this appears to mean maybe legal contracts worth their weight in gold will not continue or maybe they will. As for the Ethics Commission it said it is not looking any further into the Walgreens deal.
Joe Monahan is a veteran journalist and public relations professional who has authored the popular blog NM Politics with Joe Monahan (joemonahan.com) since 2003.