Interviewing witnesses adds to cost of U-46 bias suit

The legal bills continue to mount in the discrimination lawsuit against Elgin Area School District U-46 as lawyers interview witnesses this summer.

Attorneys from the district's Chicago and Washington law firms have interviewed five witnesses and some of the plaintiffs.

At least one interview lasted 6¨ hours -- and these lawyers charge between $275 and $445 an hour, according to 2006 records supplied by the district.

In addition to the lawyers' hourly rate, taxpayers are on the hook for airfare and hotel costs, as well as hiring temporary court reporters.

A lawyer for the district could not offer the total cost of interviewing witnesses.

In April, however, the district already had run up $2.2æmillion in legal fees since the lawsuit was filed by Elgin families in 2005.

A partner from Hogan Hartson, the district's Washington-based law firm, of which U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was a partner, flew from Washington to Illinois on two separate occasions this summer.

In May, Audrey Anderson deposed the former principal of Illinois Park, Cathy Dunphy. The school's closing in the 2004 redrawing of school boundary lines was a central point of the lawsuit.

A lawyer from Hogan Hatson also traveled from the firm's Indiana office in July to depose Ed Schock, Elgin's mayor.

Schock was interviewed because the city of Elgin retained Futterman and Howard for a short period in July 2004 to fight U-46's decision to redraw its boundary map.

In July, Anderson flew back to Illinois with an intern to interview Kerry Kelly, a former member of the parent group FOCUS, which formed after Elgin dropped Futterman and Howard.

Carol Ashley of Futterman and Howard called the district's decision to depose people who are not party to the lawsuit, like Schock and Kelly, "a waste of resources."

Pattie Whitten of Franczek and Sullivan, the district's Chicago-based law firm, countered that many of those interviewed were identified by Ashley as people with information that is pertinent to the lawsuit.

Mike Hernandez of Franczek Sullivan has flown to North Carolina to interview U-46's former assistant director of bilingual education, Ori Guerra.

Lawyers for the district have indicated they might want to interview Guerra's wife, Bonnie, at a later date -- again in North Carolina.

In addition to their U-46 ties, the Guerras were active members of FOCUS.

Kelly, who said her deposition lasted 6¨ hours, attended Monday's board meeting and blasted the district for flying lawyers in from out of town.

"I just wanted the board to know what's going on," Kelly said Tuesday. "The lawyers are definitely putting some serious time and money into this, and they need to be aware of it."

Scheduling conflicts forced the district to fly lawyers in, said Pattie Whitten of Franczek Sullivan.

The district's lawyers were trying to accommodate the crammed schedule of the lawyers for the families suing the district, Whitten said, "and we were trying to meet the court's deadline" for gathering evidence.

Board President Ken Kaczynski said the board is monitoring spending closely.

"It is expensive, there's no getting around that the cost is real," Kaczynski said. "We discuss it at length, and think they're on right track. … They are certainly not operating in isolation."

The lawsuit claims the district violated the rights of black and Hispanic students, who, the lawsuit claims, attend older, more crowded schools, ride the bus farther and more often than white students, and receive inferior educational opportunities.