Lawyers lose try for work on Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge here has ruled in favor of the Energy Department in a dispute with an international law firm over Yucca Mountain legal work.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina last week quietly threw out a 2-year-old case brought by LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and MacRae in its attempt to force the department to hire the firm.

"We are pleased the court found DOE's decision-making in this matter to be sound," Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said in a written statement.

The ruling was sealed until legal wording is finalized, so the firm does not know exactly why the judge ruled against the firm, LeBoeuf lawyer Michael McBride said. The ruling caught the firm by surprise; its lawyers had been optimistic in recent weeks.

"We're extremely disappointed," McBride said.

The dispute arose in 1999 when the Energy Department awarded a $16.5 million contract to low bidder Chicago-based Winston & Strawn, passing over its top rival LeBoeuf.

The firms had been competing for the massive job of helping the department assemble a complex application for a license to construct the high-level nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The department plans to submit the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.

LeBoeuf sued to obtain the job in March 2000, arguing that Winston had a conflict of interest. LeBoeuf argued Winston had done legal work for a department subcontractor on the Yucca project, which put the firm in the position of reviewing its own work. Department lawyers have fought the suit.

The suit dragged on even after Winston quit the job in 2001 after other conflict-of-interest charges surfaced. Nevada officials said Winston had been a registered lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-Yucca lobby group. The department, which by law was supposed to be an impartial Yucca manager, should not have hired a pro-Yucca firm, Nevada officials said.

Winston lawyers denied they ever had a conflict of interest. But LeBoeuf lawyers were emboldened.

"We thought we had a good case, especially after Winston resigned, which indicated there were conflicts of interest and that the firm should not have been selected in the first place," McBride said.

LeBoeuf is pondering its next move, McBride said. So is the Energy Department. The department never hired another firm to handle its Yucca license application. In-house Energy Department lawyers had argued that LeBoeuf had no claim to the job because they took over the work themselves when Winston left.

Department officials have been mum about whether they ever planned to hire another firm.

At a July 30 presentation to the National Academy of Sciences, department Yucca chief Margaret Chu said acquiring "licensing expertise" was among her top goals. She did not elaborate.

McBride declined to say whether LeBoeuf would apply for the job if the department sought a law firm again.