NCAA scandal has cost UA $1.4M so far, records show
The University of Arizona has spent at least $1.4 million on outside legal work during the 12 months since the Arizona Wildcats’ former assistant men’s basketball coach was arrested on charges of bribery and fraud.
Legal bills released under the Arizona Public Records Law show the university divided that spending between two Phoenix firms since September 2017, paying $796,817 to Steptoe and Johnson and $623,822 to Jackson Lewis.
The bills account for 3,100 hours of legal work involving at least 15 law-
yers, and show the extent to which university officials have sought legal counsel since Arizona assistant men’s basketball coach Emanuel “Book” Richardson was arrested last year in a widespread FBI investigation of alleged corruption in NCAA basketball.
The university hired Steptoe and Johnson to conduct an independent review of the allegations against Richardson and any related legal issues or compliance concerns. The university hired Jackson Lewis to help with potential NCAA-related issues.
Arizona, like other schools named in the FBI probe, could face penalties if programs are found to have violated NCAA rules.
Under an NCAA rule in place since 2013, Arizona head coach Sean Miller could face penalties as leader of the basketball program, even though he has denied wrongdoing and isn’t named in the federal complaint.
UA spokesman Chris Sigurdson said in a statement the advice and counsel from outside law firms has been significant and necessary.
“The University of Arizona is committed to the ethical conduct of all our enterprises, including athletics. We have cooperated fully with the law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the NCAA and we will continue to do so,” Sigurdson said in the statement.
The university is paying for the independent investigation, while the Athletics Department covers the cost of the law firm advising the university on potential NCAA matters. Sigurdson said the legal bills are being paid from university revenues other than state money or tuition dollars.
The university notes that men’s basketball is a moneymaker, bringing in $22.5 million in fiscal 2017 and netting $11.7 million after expenses. That money is used to support other athletic programs.
Universities have staffers charged with complying with NCAA rules. But reviews by outside law firms are becoming increasingly common among public universities embroiled in athletic scandals, said Alicia Jessop, a sports-law professor at Pepperdine University.
An independent law firm or investigator provides unbiased eyes to evaluate and ensure everything is operating appropriately, she said. Using an outside firm also removes the perception that the review will be biased in the school’s favor.
Deciding to hire an outside firm can also reflect a cost-benefit calculation by the university, she said. A university may spend a couple million dollars on legal fees, “but what’s the cost to the university if it doesn’t spend that money and another alleged impropriety occurs? Is the cost of that higher than what they’re spending to sniff out potential issues?” she said.
At the center of the FBI probe into college basketball are allegations that assistant coaches at several schools and student-athlete recruits received payments that violate rules set by the NCAA, the governing body of college sports.
The federal complaint against Richardson, the former assistant coach, says he met with an aspiring sports agent, Christian Dawkins in June 2017 and agreed to steer student-athletes at Arizona toward a new sports management company controlled by the 25-year-old Dawkins.
Richardson accepted a $5,000 cash bribe after the June meeting, the indictment says, and a month later another $15,000.
Payments to basketball players, beyond what they get in scholarships, violate the NCAA’s amateur standard.
If a recruit took money from a sports agent, he could be deemed ineligible by the NCAA and any victories in which he played could be vacated by the team.
Coaches can be suspended, and the NCAA can reduce the number of athletic scholarships a program awards for a period of years. A school’s coach can even find himself in the hot seat with the NCAA, even if he didn’t know about the violations.
Both firms hired by the UA submit monthly bills to the school.
Legal bills for public bodies — such as state universities, counties or cities — are considered public records under state law and can be requested by any member of the public.
Journalists routinely ask to review legal bills on high-profile investigations to find out how money is being spent and what the public body may be defending their employees against.
The legal bills related to the FBI basketball investigation were obtained after three Republic public-records requests, the first of which was submitted more than a year ago.
If Arizona fans or critics are hoping to get insight from the legal bills on what attorneys looked into or found, they won’t get much information.
The date of each attorney’s work is redacted, along with a few sentences of description on the work performed. In some cases, attorneys traveled as part of their work. But information on where they traveled is redacted.
University officials redacted the legal bills to protect what they say is the “confidentiality of attorney-client privilege and/or attorney-client work product.”
Arizona law provides protection for information that is considered attorney-client privilege, such as legal advice attorneys are giving a university.
Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, said the privilege applies to protect the “substance of a communication.” He examined the legal bills released by the university and said school officials were “overzealous” in redacting information.
“Bills from law firms are supposed to be public record, no doubt about that,” he said. “The only grounds for withholding information should be if it is disclosing privileged communication. But the amount that is billed, and the date it’s billed, and a basic description of the service are not privileged. The public should be entitled to at least that much.”
By comparison, The Republic recently requested and received legal bills related to the attorneys defending Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Juan Martinez against state Bar complaints. Those bills are not redacted to the same extent as the university’s. The bills released by the county-reveal the date of service and a description of the legal service provided, such as “review of materials in file relating to alleged misconduct.”
In some cases, the County Attorney’s Office redacted details such as the description of the telephone conversation an attorney had with Martinez, but not the fact that the attorney talked with Martinez.
LoMonte said at a minimum, the public has an interest in knowing what the law firms are up to “because they are charging good money.”
“In a larger sense, the dealings between an agency and a law firm are a window into what the agency is up to, especially when you have a scandal going on in an athletic department.”
He said it shouldn’t have taken a year for the university to release copies of bills to the public. Arizona law requires public entities — such as the state universities, state agencies, counties and cities — to “promptly furnish” public records.
“Promptly” isn’t defined under the law. But LoMonte said taking a year to produce records that require little compilation or retrieval is not reasonable.
“It’s one thing if they have to dig in their archives for a document,” he said. “But something that is on the hard drive of the legal counsel should be retrievable in hours, not months.”
Sigurdson, the university spokesman, said the delayed response to certain initial public-record inquiries was because of requests received by governmental or regulatory authorities and was, at all times, in accordance with Arizona law.
As for the redactions, he said the university redacted information that could be used to determine legal advice and counsel, including the dates on which that guidance was provided.
The records released by the university do show how much was billed each month, along with the total number of hours and the attorneys who worked on the matter.
The approximately 3,100 hours worth of legal work is the equivalent to one attorney working 40 hour-weeks for a year and a half. The two law firms used at least 15 attorneys at various times, according to records.
Steptoe and Johnson’s largest bill was in January, for $129,412, according to records released to The Republic.
The largest monthly charge from Jackson Lewis was $119,930 in October 2017, their first month of work for the university after the FBI arrested 10 people across the country in connection with the alleged pay-for-play schemes.
The bulk of the work by Jackson Lewis — the firm advising on potential NCAA matters — was in the first six months, with monthly bills at times reaching six figures. The bills for the past six months have been less, ranging from $5,269 to $53,050.
Because the dates are redacted, it’s impossible to tell whether there was a flurry of legal work after ESPN published a report on Miller in late February, garnering national attention.
The ESPN report said FBI wiretaps captured Miller talking with a sports agent about paying $100,000 to ensure star player Deandre Ayton signed with the Wildcats. Miller and Ayton have vehemently denied the allegations. The university and the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state universities, also stood behind Miller after conducting its own inquiry.
The Board of Regents declined to comment through a spokeswoman about legal work related to the FBI basketball investigation.
“No additional feedback from the board at this time,” board spokeswoman Sarah Harper wrote in an email responding to an interview request.