Abtin Mehdizadegan of the Hall Booth Smith law firm sent the letter to all current members of the board along with 191 pages of unpaid invoices and copies of his motions to withdraw as its attorney in the lawsuits.
“This work was performed under extraordinary circumstances,” Mehdizadegan wrote in the letter, a copy of which the Advocate obtained Tuesday night. “I defended against relentless litigation tactics, multiple appeals, disqualification motions, legislative subpoenas, weaponized FOIA requests, and ultimately a lawsuit against me personally and my law firm.”
Mehdizadegan confirmed the letter’s authenticity and said he had nothing further to add beyond what he had written.
Mehdizadegan was hired by the board in 2023 to represent it in challenge of two state laws that shifted authority over the Department of Corrections’ leadership to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The board ultimately prevailed in its lawsuit last year. Sanders appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, where the case is pending
After Sanders appointed a majority of the board’s members, Mehdizadegan was fired Jan. 23 by a 4-3 vote. According to the invoices included with the letter, the board owes the Hall Booth Smith firm more than $320,000.
Mehdizadegan also represented the board in a related lawsuit filed by Attorney General Tim Griffin challenging his hiring as the board’s attorney. The case, which claimed the panel violated state procurement and open records laws, is ongoing.
Mehdizadegan’s Feb. 2 letter accused the board – whose makeup has changed drastically in recent months and is now led by Sanders’ former deputy chief of staff – of behaving in a way that was “beneath the dignity of a constitutional body.”
Mehdizadegan specifically criticized how the motion to fire him last month characterized his hiring as “illegal.”
A Pulaski County Circuit Court judge who rejected the lawsuit challenging his hiring “explicitly confirmed” that it complied with state law last year, Mehdizadegan wrote, and to say otherwise was “factually and legally incorrect.”
He went on to say the board has the right to fire him, but that firing him did not change that he and his firm had to be paid for their services.
“By attempting to recharacterize a court-validated engagement as illegal’ to justify non-payment, the Board is not merely engaging in a fee dispute; it is participating in the same erosion of institutional integrity that we once stood together to oppose-all in breach of our contract together,” Mehdizadegan wrote.
Jamie Barker, the board’s new chair, did not respond to a request for comment.
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