By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
May 29, 2024
More invoices released from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office further reveal how much the state has been charged by outside counsel Schaerr Jaffe, which aided in Rokita’s case against Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis OB/GYN, before the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana and also helped defend him before the Indiana Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Commission.
The Washington, D.C. firm originally signed with former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill to assist the state in legal matters. Rokita has extended the contract seven times and increased the cap, most recently, to not exceed $1.5 million.
Invoices submitted by Schaerr Jaffe and given to The Indiana Citizen in response to an open records request, show the firm has billed the attorney general’s office $311,124.71 for its work from May 2022 through September 2023. This period would have included the start of the matter involving Bernard, who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim, and the first disciplinary investigation opened against Rokita.
However, discerning specifically what work Schaerr Jaffe has billed for is difficult, because the invoices are heavily redacted.
In 2023, The Indiana Citizen received copies of the Schaerr Jaffe invoices from the Indiana comptroller, covering the work the law firm did from May 2022 through April 2023. The invoices from the attorney general’s office include the billings from that same time period, plus additional invoices covering May 2023 through September 2023.
Although the pages are not as redacted as the ones from the comptroller, significant portions of each invoice are blacked out, so determining what work was related to the disciplinary matter is difficult.
Many of the entries on the invoices are charges for either Christopher Bartolomucci, partner at Schaerr Jaffe, or Gene Schaerr, founding partner of the firm. Their hourly rate has climbed from $385 to $550. Discounts are also sprinkled throughout, although what they were for or why they were given is not explained.
Rokita’s office declined to disclose the total amount that has been spent representing him in the disciplinary matter when asked by the Citizen and the Indiana Capital Chronicle. But a spokesman reiterated a statement made in September 2023, which justified the use of taxpayer money in the disciplinary matter, because Rokita is “a state attorney whose efforts are performed on behalf of the state.
Indianapolis attorney James Ammeen of Ammeen Valenzuela Associates also defended Rokita in the disciplinary matter. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Of the total amount billed by Schaerr Jaffe, more than a quarter – $105,719.94 – were charges for the work done in May 2023, the month Bernard appeared before the Medical Licensing Board.
In June of 2022, Bernard performed a medication abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim. The young girl had to come to Indiana for treatment, because her home state of Ohio had banned most abortion care after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
A story in which Bernard confirmed she had provided the abortion appeared in The Indianapolis Star in July 2022. Rokita subsequently made several public statements about Bernard in which he called her “an abortion activist acting as a doctor – with a history of failing to report” and announced his office had opened an investigation into her conduct.
By February 2023, Rokita was under investigation by the Disciplinary Commission for his handling of the Bernard matter and he enlisted Schaerr Jaffe to represent him. The matter was resolved in November 2023, when a 3-2 majority of the Indiana Supreme Court approved a conditional agreement in which Rokita admitted to violating two Indiana Attorney Professional Conduct Rules in exchange for a public reprimand. He was able to keep his license.
Some of the invoices filed for work done from June 2023 through September 2023 have references to the disciplinary matter but the redactions make it impossible to estimate how much was spent to defend Rokita. The charges for that time period total $16,689.83.
During last summer, the invoices note that the Schaerr Jaffe team was also analyzing the next steps in the Bernard matter.
The invoice for May 2023 indicates the bulk of the charges were for work done to prepare and help litigate the Bernard matter before the Medical Licensing Board. The attorney general’s office had filed a complaint with that board against Bernard in December 2022 and the 15-hour hearing was held in Indianapolis on May 25, 2023.
Among the charges on the Schaerr Jaffe invoices are $1,480.51 in expenses for Barolomucci to travel and stay in Indianapolis for the Medical Licensing Board hearing and $13,640 for work done by Bartolomucci and Schaerr on the day of the proceeding.
The Medical Licensing Board found Bernard had violated the 10-year-old girl’s privacy by speaking to the IndyStar. The board reprimanded Bernard and fined her $3,000, but she was able to keep her license.
The Indiana Citizen and the Indiana Capital Chronicle filed a complaint in November 2023 with the Indiana Public Access Counselor about the amount of redacting in the batch of invoices from the comptroller. In his response, Luke Britt, the counselor found the extensive marking did not violate the state’s Access to Public Records Act but advised the attorney general to redact “with a much lighter touch.”
The Indiana Citizen submitted its request for what is the second batch of Schaerr Jaffe invoices to the attorney general’s office on Oct. 30, 2023. The office responded with the invoices on May 23, 2024.
Since the resolution of the disciplinary matter against Rokita, the Disciplinary Commission has opened a second investigation. The focus of the investigation is whether the state’s top lawyer violated additional professional conduct rules for the combative public statement he released after his first disciplinary matter was settled. In that statement, Rokita blamed “liberal activists” and the media for his troubles and claimed he had “evidence and explanation for everything I said.”
Dwight Adams, a freelance editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org