Mississippi columnist Sid Salter shines a little light on Democrat A.G.’s
Jim Hood’s belief that his friends should be paid much better for state
legal work than lawyers who aren’t his friends.  That seems to be Salter’s
take.  Check out this lead in: 

One interesting sideline to the
state Supreme Court's near-unanimous rejection of the unconstitutional and
illegal diversion of $20 million a year to the Partnership for a Healthy
Mississippi was the revelation that Attorney General Jim Hood thinks outside
counsel legal fees should be $150 per hour.

Uh, $150 per hour? Is that really
what Hood believes the going rate should be for outside counsel hirings by
state officials? Seems so.

Too bad Hood didn't use that figure
when he hired his longtime friend and largest campaign contributor Joey
Langston of Booneville and another firm to split $14 million in legal fees in
the $100 million MCI/WorldCom case. Langston ended up with about $7 million of
those fees.

Too bad former attorney general Mike
Moore didn't use that figure back when he hired his longtime friend and largest
campaign contributor Dickie Scruggs to handle the state's tobacco litigation
that Moore used to create the Partnership diversion.

Scruggs and a hand-picked group of
trial lawyers reportedly split more than $1.4 billion in legal fees from the
state's tobacco litigation.

And this little gem:

Apparently, when the governor or
state treasurer of Mississippi wants to hire outside counsel to represent him,
the going rate is $150 per hour. But when the state's attorney general – at
least when Moore or Hood hold that position – hires outside counsel, the going
rate is a contingency fee negotiated by the attorney general with no oversight
from anyone.

Read all about
it here.