Baker Hostetler is working at a discounted rate for the chance to bring a constitutional challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Washington partners David Rivkin Jr. and Lee Casey are billing $250 an hour, according to a copy of the March 19 contract between the firm and the Florida attorney general’s office. Rivkin said the rate is “substantially reduced.”
The two lawyers are outside counsel to Florida and 12 other states that together filed suit on March 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. A spokeswoman for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican, said the 13 states will share legal costs, which under the contract cannot exceed $50,000 plus expenses. For their own part, Rivkin and Casey have been publicly arguing for months that Congress has no authority to require individuals to buy insurance.
