Maryland Stadium Authority's Hiring of Law Firm Assailed

"The law says they can only go outside for counsel with prior written approval" from the attorney general's office, Dove said.

At the stadium authority's request, the attorney general's office had started researching the legal issues surrounding a potential suit over the Montreal Expos franchise moving to Washington. Dove said authority officials told her to put the work on hold, "and that's the last we heard of it. But nothing at that time suggested we couldn't handle the work ourselves."

Asti, the stadium authority executive director, said in a series of interviews that she was under an entirely different impression.

She said she first sought the state's lawyers to research the matter but was told the governor's office did not want them to be distracted from work they were doing relating to Ehrlich's legal dispute with the Baltimore Sun. The attorney general's office was "extremely busy," Asti said.

She made the same assertion in a May 3 memo she wrote to authority board members in which she explained the legal expenses.

Reached yesterday, authority Chairman Carl A.J. Wright said he has confidence that Asti is correct.

"I know we've done this in the past, where we feel we need some special or unique talent. I don't think this is unique," Wright said.

"I feel very comfortable in our decision to hire Billy [Murphy]," Wright said.

Wright said the contract was not required to be put to a board vote, but board members discussed the matter in closed session before Murphy was retained.

Strictly from a cost standpoint, the outside firm was almost certainly more expensive than state lawyers would have been, Dove said. "Everyone in the attorney general's office is paid a state salary," she said. "It's not $685 an hour, believe me."

The disagreement over hiring Murphy's firm appears to tap into a long-developing rift between the executive branch and the attorney general's office in Maryland. Ehrlich and Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. have clashed repeatedly over the past two years.

Curran, a Democrat who is in his fifth term as attorney general, is considering a bid next year for a sixth term. Ehrlich is the state's first Republican governor in a generation.

The political brew is thickened by the fact that Curran's daughter is married to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), who last week announced his bid to unseat Ehrlich.

Curran has said that politics do not factor into how he runs the office.

Asti said she does not recall who first recommended Murphy's firm: "I had a discussion with my board members, and everyone agreed that was the right team."

Jervis S. Finney, the governor's general counsel, worked with Murphy and his associates for four months reviewing the possible lawsuit. Billing records provided to The Post show that Finney and attorneys from Murphy's firm participated in nine conference calls to discuss the matter, including several that lasted more than two hours.

Finney said he worked "collaterally" with Murphy's firm. Asked whether the governor recommended the firm be hired, Finney replied, "I don't think I ought to get into that."