State Education Department paid legal firm more than $38K in May, public records show

Public records show the Oklahoma State Department of Education , led by state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, paid more than $38,000 to an Oklahoma City legal firm in May for the firm’s work, as the agency dealt with the sudden depletion of its entire in-house team of attorneys.

Goodwin/Lewis attorneys Paul Cason, Jason Reese and Emmalee Barresi have represented Walters, the agency and-or the state Board of Education in at least three high-profile legal cases during 2024. They lost one — a lawsuit by Edmond Public Schools in the Oklahoma Supreme Court that resulted in the voiding of some of the state agency’s administrative rules concerning library materials.

A lawsuit filed in January by two teachers who each received a $50,000 bonus in error from the state Education Department — which Walters and the agency attempted to claw back — alleged breach of contract by the state agency and defamation by Walters. Walters and the agency countersued, with the court filing signed by Reese. Settlement negotiations remain ongoing in that case, said Mark Hammons, the attorney for the teachers.

Even though there are at least two attorneys now on the state Education Department staff, Reese also currently is representing Walters and the state Board of Education in a lawsuit filed by a Moore Public Schools student in Cleveland County District Court in December. At issue in that case is what authority, if any, the state board has to order local school districts not to alter sex or gender designations in past school records.

Cason and Barresi also are listed as attorneys in the case, although neither attended a recent hearing in the case, after which a judge issued a protective order requested by the student against Walters and the board. That case remains pending.

Reese is a former general counsel to Gov. Kevin Stitt who spent about nine months in that role before resigning in September 2021 . Reese ran an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2018. Barresi is the daughter-in-law of former state schools Superintendent Janet Barresi, who served in that statewide elected office from 2011-2015.

What the public records show about how much state agency paid law firm

The records, from the state Office of Management and Enterprise Services , show the state Education Department contracted with Goodwin/Lewis in February “while replacing Legal Counsel.”

The state Education Department had to hire outside attorneys after all of its in-house lawyers resigned in March, part of an exodus of at least 130 employees from the agency since Walters took office in January 2023. Walters has falsely claimed he fired all of those employees.

How much taxpayer money the state Education Department has spent on outside legal fees since Walters took office last year remains a mystery to the public. The agency has failed to respond to an open-records request filed May 10, in which The Oklahoman asked for copies of all contracts made between the agency, Walters or the state Board of Education and outside attorneys since Jan. 9, 2023, along with all billing documents made by licensed attorneys and/or legal firms regarding the providing of legal services to the agency, board and-or Walters during that time.

The Oklahoman has 10 outstanding open-records requests filed with the agency dating as far back as last October. The records regarding money paid to Goodwin/Lewis attorneys were obtained from another source.

According to the public records, the agreement with Goodwin/Lewis was for “interim legal services” with payment to come from state funds. The contract period was for Feb. 29 of this year until Feb. 28, 2025. A purchase order for $75,000 was approved by the OMES.

OMES records show seven vouchers were created, which were paid in May over two payments. On May 15, vouchers for $18,554, $2587.50 and $270 were paid, and on May 31, vouchers for $8,548, $4,814, $292.50 and $3,158.50 were paid. All totaled, the state Education Department paid Goodwin/Lewis $38,224.50 for the firm’s legal services to that point.

It's unclear if that payment was strictly for work done on the Edmond lawsuit, or on all three lawsuits.

The money spent on those lawsuits is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the agency’s outside legal spending, considering Walters, the agency and-or the board have been listed as defendants in at least 11 state and federal court cases since he took office. In the majority of those cases, the department has hired attorneys from outside the agency. The Oklahoman found at least 14 non-agency attorneys, some from out of state, listed on court filings in those cases, including the three from Goodwin/Lewis.

Previous records release shined light on the agency's legal loss in Edmond lawsuit

An incomplete agency response to a previous records request provided insight into the background of the Edmond lawsuit. Those records provided indicated the state Education Department began formulating a “Library Media Advisory Committee” in early October.

The committee was defined in agency documents as “a specialized committee established to provide guidance and recommendations to the Oklahoma State Board of Education regarding the adherence of books and materials available within Oklahoma public schools” to what the agency called its “Media Program Rule,” essentially established through the administrative rules the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down with its decision.

By early December , that advisory board — whose membership, with one exception , remains a secret despite multiple open-records requests made by multiple media outlets — had decided Edmond Public Schools needed to remove two award-winning books, “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini , from district libraries.

Bryan Cleveland, then the agency’s general counsel, sent a letter about the books to the Edmond district on Jan. 19, and the district filed its lawsuit in the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Feb. 20. On June 11, the court unanimously ruled in favor of Edmond, saying state statutes give local school boards, and not the state, “power and a type of statutory discretion to supply books for a school library that meet local community standards.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: State Education Department paid legal firm more than $38K in May, public records show