Minnesota Lawyer has an interesting article posted on its website about the I-35W bridge report. Gray Plant Mooty -- the private local firm that the Legislature hired to investigate the circumstances of the bridge collapse -- agreed when it took the job to cap its fees at $500K. After thousands of hours spent on the project -- and a big investment of IT-resources -- the firm submitted a 15-inch thick report critical of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
If the state had paid the firm's hourly rate, the cost of the firm's involvement would have substantially exceeded the $500K fee. The state would have been more likely have had to pay somewhere in the $600K-$800K range. The firm said in an interview that it knew when it took on the project that the $500K would not cover its investment of attorney time and related costs incurred in generating the report. However, the firm also said it wanted to be involved both to make sure the investigation got done right and as a public service to the state.
This begs a question: Can the "uncompensated" attorney time the firm's attorneys put in once the $500K had been exhausted be classified as pro bono? There is no clear answer. Another way to look at it is that the firm actually gave the state "reduced rate" representation by bidding an amount it knew was too low to cover its usual hourly rate.
In any event, the firm certainly got a million dollars worth of marketing out of the deal. Its name was splashed in newspapers and television reports throughout the state as the "private law firm hired by lawmakers" to complete a report on the bridge collapse. The only real "negative" publicity the firm arguably got was from the Strib's Katherine Kersten ("News flash: Law firm hired by DFL legislators to investigate bridge collapse finds DFL was right!"). Kersten herself has a legal background and presumably knows that a major law firm is not going to risk its hard-earned reputation to slant a report for a client, but that did not stop her from implying that it would. Sigh.
Well, they say there is no such thing as bad publicity so long as they spell your name right. ... Now was that Gray Plant or Grey Plant? I keep forgetting ....
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So...the report is accurate because an inaccurate report would hurt Gray Plant? We needn't examine the methodology, data, or conclusions, because of the sterling reputations of the law firm involved. Moreover, since Katherine Kersten is the only one to criticize the report, so it must be accurate. And we got a bargain to boot.
How many logical fallacies can you count?
BTW, the 60 Minutes report on "Millenials" reminded me of "Bitter 3L"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/08/60minutes/main3475200.shtml
You have to be cynical, you have to question things. You can't take someone named Belle LaBelle on face value. What's her angle, huh? Who's payroll is she on? You find out the answers to those things, and then you start movin' fast and crooked. You go through doorways sideways and low, at odd angles. You look for the big lie, question everything.
-Jim Rockford
I certainly don't think the report is above criticism. Anyone with the ammo to tear it up based on data, methodology or the conclusions -- have at it, I say. But don't imply it was a foregone conclusion just because of who hired the firm. The premise behind Kersten's argument that if MnDOT had hired Gray Plant, the firm's report would have been the complete opposite. Frankly, I find that a little difficult to swallow. Even puting aside ethics and "sterling" reputations, it would be against a firm's own business interests to operate in such a fashion.
I agree the report should be closely scrutinized -- I would like to have seen that rather than an unsubstantiated conclusion that "the fix was in."
***
Unfortunately, I missed the 60 Minutes report last night.
A Rockford quote? That's great. Don't think our Millenial readers will recall the show, but pound for pound one of the best detective shows of all time. Personally, I think Jim was secretly on Angel's payroll ...
Mark: So when a pharmaceutical company pays for research, you don't assume the research findings will have a slant? How about the tobacco companies? Come on.
There is a lot more precedent of 'the fix is in' than not.
I do have to award points on that observation, which is a good one. Ther is a bit of difference here though. Unlike those tobacco institute "research companies," I don't think anyone here could claim Gray Plant is some sort of shell that DFL lawmakers set up to issue favorable reports. (I think it was founded around the time of the Civil War, so that would really have taken some planning ...) My point is that it would really hurt Gray Plant's reputation to act less than independently -- particularly in such a high-profile matter. A $500K payoff to put a 140-year-old firm at risk seems to me unlikely.
However, as a journalist, I can definitely appreciate the cynical point of view. I just think it would take more than a check for what Gray Plant spends on toilet paper (or a few 25-year-old associates for that matter) to get it to compromise itself ...
Now send me a $500K check and it might be a different story! Please send it c/o Minnesota Lawyer ...
There are 2 US senators from Minnesota. One of them is an DFL attorney and former GPM partner.
If things would have gone slightly differently, the other US senator from Minnesota would be the former chairman of the state's most profitable firm, whose firm is doing bridge victim work for free.
Clearly, lawyers and politics are all over 35W bridge collapse.
So maybe a better question is who is more public spirited, the GPM firm that took $500k; or the Robins Kaplan firm that is taking nothing?
Or perhaps we have MN's smokers as the real source of this magnnanimity; they paid for Robins' biggest payday and were padding GPM partners for years (the firm represented RJR in the MN tobacco trial and elsewhere).
The "Question Everything" Rockford quote was in reference to the bridge report. It was said to a private eye with a "sterling reputation" who was even liked by Lt. Chapman.
I got you on that, Peter -- although admittedly it took a Google search. I did not recall the "Belle LaBelle" episode.
I am sure there must be an on-point episode of "Quincy" as well ...
Every episode. Quixotic crusader carries on to find the right answer despite the powers that be accepting the easy answer.
"Thigh Bone's Connected..." Quincy rebuilds an entire bridge from a single strut. He continues despite criticism from Lt. Monaghan of the Homicide Division and his supervisor, Asten.
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