Posted on: Saturday, September 25, 2004

Dobelle legal costs hit $1M

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

The ouster of former University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle will cost the university about $1 million in fees from lawyers hired by the Board of Regents to negotiate a settlement and fees for his attorneys, university records show.

And while university officials are still haggling over how much the settlement will finally cost taxpayers, several said yesterday that the legal bill is less than what it would have cost to buy out Dobelle.

The bill, which includes $290,000 paid to Dobelle's legal team, and an estimated $750,000 due to UH lawyers, enabled the university to avoid at least $4.5 million that would have been paid if Dobelle had been fired without cause and his contract paid off, regent Kitty Lagareta said.

Officials involved in negotiating Dobelle's exit package said yesterday that talks are ongoing with the UH carrier, National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, in hopes that the policy will cover most or all of the costs, including legal bills.

Just how much those costs will be rekindled a now-familiar dispute between advocates for the UH Board of Regents, which terminated Dobelle "for cause" June 15, and lawyers for the former president, who on July 29 settled with the regents after mediation.

Rick Fried, Dobelle's lead attorney, said yesterday that the university should include Dobelle's life insurance death benefit of $1.6 million and other costs in its calculations and would have done better if it had simply paid off his contract.

"This trying to terminate 'with cause' not only has created an incredible stir at the university but they've ended up having to pay more money, and in addition to paying Evan they have to pay another university president," Fried said.

However, that assessment was countered by William McCorriston, whose firm McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon headed the UH legal team. McCorriston said that, in addition to the central contract with about $2.2 million payable, the buyout would have included several side agreements for a grand total of about $4.5 million.

These obligations would have included compensation of "well over $1 million" for Dobelle's lifetime tenure agreement, he said.

Viewed through this lens, McCorriston said, the July settlement plus the legal bills that came later would bring costs to about $2.3 million.

"For me, we paid less than 50 cents on the dollar to get this guy to resign," McCorriston said.

Kitty Lagareta, vice chairwoman for the Board of Regents, agreed.

"The point for us is, we got out of this thing for $2.5 million; I'm thrilled," Lagareta said. "It's over.

"We think our lawyers did a great job and earned every cent."

Regents chairwoman Patricia Lee is traveling and was unavailable for comment yesterday.

David McClain, the UH acting president, was on Maui yesterday and could not be reached for comment. But he has said in the past that any residual settlement expenses not covered by insurance would be absorbed by the UH administration budget and would not reduce allotments for any of the system's 10 campuses.

Lagareta said university general counsel Walter Kirimitsu been collecting the bills that already arrived — about $650,000 — and yesterday informed regents and UH officials that about $100,000 more are expected.

Kirimitsu did not return calls for comment yesterday.

McCorriston said his firm's bill also includes fees for professional services such as a forensic audit of Dobelle's financial records, public relations services for communications with news media, and private investigation services to locate a witness.

State Rep. Mark Takai, D-34th (Pearl City, Newtown, Royal Summit), the House Higher Education Committee chairman, said UH has turned a corner in a difficult ordeal.

Takai said UH seems headed toward an era of fewer high-paid administrators and of hope for growth in education services.

"I think the handling of the Dobelle exit was terrible, but I believe that the university is better off today than it was just a few months ago," Takai said. "Moving forward, the university is going to do well."

Reach Vicki Viotti at 525-8053 or vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com.