Law firm seeking Yucca job takes case to court

Thursday, May 15, 2003 | 11:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- An international law firm that has long coveted a job with the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Project is going to court -- again -- to get the work.

At issue is highly specialized legal assistance the department needs to assemble a license application to construct Yucca, the proposed site of a national nuclear waste repository. The department plans to submit the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December 2004.

The $16.5 million legal contract initially was awarded to Chicago-based Winston & Strawn in 1999, but the firm quit the job two years later amid allegations that it had a pro-Yucca conflict of interest, a charge the firm strongly denied.

New York-based LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & Macrae had sued in March 2000 to obtain the job, arguing it was the most qualified of any firms. That matter is still pending. The department has not hired another firm, but it intends to, according to an April 30 letter from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

In the letter, Abraham wrote to explain to the top House lawmaker that the department intends to use an "informal" review process to hire a law firm, as opposed to the "more formalized" competitive bid process required by law. In an official "Determinations and Findings" document signed by Abraham that accompanied the letter, Abraham noted that federal law allows for informal processes when warranted by special circumstances.

"We intend to award a contract to a law firm using a competitive selection process that is specially tailored to this unique and highly important endeavor," Abraham wrote.

That's code jargon for "DOE will not be hiring LeBoeuf for the work," according to a legal motion filed Wednesday by LeBoeuf Lamb in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The motion is an effort to obtain an injunction that would bar the department from hiring any other firm.