Ogletree Deakins files claim against County Supervisors



A m e r i c a n  P o s t – G a z e t t e

Distributed by C O M M O N  S E N S E , in Arizona

Friday, March 25, 2011

Top, nonpolitical nationwide law firm now suing County Supervisors for going after them
Supervisors did everything they could to thwart and ruin well-respected law firm, now trying to block their claim

The saga of the corrupt Maricopa County Supervisors never ends, and continues to get worse. Remember when they went after Ogletree Deakins, one of the top law firms in the country, ranked as a Tier 1 law firm by U.S. News & World Report, with over 500 attorneys and 40 offices around the country?  Ogletree has performed work for Maricopa County government for years, it is considered one of the most stable law firms in the Valley. When the Supervisors went on their jihad against other County officials, Ogletree happened to be doing work for Sheriff Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. The Supervisors tried to cut off ALL attorneys from representing Arpaio and Thomas, including Ogletree Deakins, which had no partisan bias either way, they were just doing their job. Then the Supervisors started investigating the firm! They finally fired the firm and refused to pay them for work performed! This was all so Arpaio and Thomas would have no legal representation to fight back against the Supervisors’ jihad against them in the press, courts, and through their legions of attorneys (remember the Supervisors and judges had ELEVEN outside law firms – mostly the top law firms in the Valley – representing them in the RICO case against Arpaio and Thomas, whereas they would not allow Arpaio and Thomas to have ANY outside attorneys in the RICO case, they spent thousands of dollars fighting to keep them from getting any attorneys!).

Ogletree Deakins has now filed a Notice of Claim (which is like a preliminary lawsuit when you are suing government) against the Supervisors for $10 million. According to the Arizona Republic,

The eight-page claim asserts county officials repeatedly defamed Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC, wrongfully fired the firm, and refused to pay $1.1 million in attorney’s fees. The firm is willing to “resolve its disputes” with the county for full payment of the invoices and attorney’s fees, plus a public apology from county officials and a “formal retraction of the countless defamatory, and provable false statements certain county officials and agents have uttered.” If the Board of Supervisors do not agree to those terms, Ogletree demands $11.2 million.

 

The claim says Ogletree “is loath to burden the county taxpayers with yet another massive obligation brought about by the wrong-headed acts of the county’s officials and agents,” adding that “it is truly unfortunate, and even downright despicable that certain county officials and agents have repeatedly defamed Ogletree and its attorneys without the slightest basis in fact.”

 

Astonishingly, the Supervisors are trying to prevent the claim from going through. The claim was filed in court in time on the last day possible before the statute of limitations ran out, March 21, but the Supervisors are claiming it is not valid since it was not “served” on them until March 22. We smell a rat. The Supervisors have consistently denied any accountability for their actions. They act with impunity and have unlimited access and control over our tax dollars. This comes as no surprise that they will do anything they can to escape accountability, even if it means smearing innocent people. We are looking forward to the slate of Tea Party candidates who will be running against them in 2012. Stay tuned, there are some really impressive candidates who will uphold fiscally conservative principles and behave ethically while in office instead of going on vindictive vendettas against conservative county electeds.

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Comments

  1. Ditat Deus says:

    Who/what is the American Post Gazette/Common Sense? A cursory google search didn’t bring much up. I see their work here frequently and would appreciate knowing what they are.

  2. Sonoran Alliance would be glad to run a response/editorial/guest opinion by any one of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. In fact, the PIO can call/email me anytime: sonoranalliance@gmail.com.

    Let me make sure that our readers understand that Sonoran Alliance is NOT American Post Gazette. APG is a separate organization.

  3. In justice says:

    On what planet can you *fire* the adversary’s attorneys? Maricopa County and its corrupt Board led by David Smith and Sandi Wilson and their ‘army’ of attorneys. Ogletree work years on very legitimate cases and Smith fired them putting the Sheriff at a distinct disadvantage. This is the way they work…with apparent impunity. Selden and Pace “husband and wife team” are just as bad. Guess who represents McDonalds and illegal-hiring employers? How about we audit their billings? It is a ‘cluster’ beyond reason. 2012 or Karma cannot come too soon.

  4. David Smith, Sandi Wilson and the “Magnificent Seven” in the State Senate are simply doing what THEIR constituents and benefactors demand. That’s politics!

    What the G.O.P. rank-and-file must do is conduct a carefully aimed internal enema to ensure that the state will create an economic template which will encourage the growth of skilled labor and a business elite which will work to that long range goal.

    The crowd with whom we’re now saddled, is about a decade away of turning Arizona into another Southern California with Phoenix becoming a mini L.A.

    In short, look forward to a land of golf courses, country clubs and slums!

    Outside of retirement elephant graveyards the productive middle class will disappear!

  5. In the formative years of our nation, citizens rose up against the tyranny of the King, and were transformed from positions of utter obscurity to be entered into the pages of history, honored and cherished by lovers of liberty from that time forth.

    Most of us are familiar with the works of Thomas Paine. His C O M M O N S E N S E pamphlet was instrumental in sparking the American Revolution. What is less well known, is that among the Founders, were anonymous pamphleteers. Discretion is the better part of valor, and they published their ideas without attribution to avoid the hangman’s noose. In the words of Thomas Paine:

    “Who the author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, that he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

    Philadelphia, February 14, 1776.”
    ____________________________________________

    Similarly, American Post Gazette, published by C O M M O N S E N S E, is unconnected to any party, public office, public official, nor even to any political movement, other than our own. We are, for the purposes of accuracy, Constitutional Centrists, neither to the right nor the left. It is the Constitution in its purist form to which we wish the nation to adhere, and propose no amendment other than that which conforms to the original intent of the Founders.

  6. This could get interesting. Mark Twain said that one should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, but that advice seems to pale in the glare of the folly of picking a fight with an entire legal firm.

  7. Everyone else can stand up and fight for trial lawyers, but I’ll say this – under this BOS Maricopa County is the only government in Arizona running in the black and doing so without taking on debt.

  8. Corrupt Board says:

    So Publius…the Cartel is running in the black too. Who really knows where the money is…apparently even the County Treasurer is kept in the dark. My guess is the Caymans or Costa Rica in the Bank of Pace/Selden. How much money did it cost to put copper on the Taj Mahal Court Tower? Ogletree represented the Treasurer when the sleezy IT CIO stole his IT division away from them. Why do you think they go after the IT divisions? Information is the cornerstone of the power. When they tried to go after the criminal justice IT, they violated several statutes.

  9. I think the BOS has bit off more than it can chew. Wise up.

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