NEW YORK – Crime-fighting New York attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy, who will professionalize the Office of the Attorney General and use it to protect New Yorkers from crime, homelessness, and fraud, today charged that Attorney General Letitia James has billed New York taxpayers nearly $20 million in outside counsel contracts for work her office was created and funded to perform, while she was simultaneously seeking $10 million in public funds to cover her personal legal bills.
“Letitia James runs one of the largest law firms in New York. She has more than 700 assistant attorneys general, a vast majority of whom are assigned to civil matters. They’ve gotten a raise every single year since 2019, and fancy new offices in downtown Manhattan,” Ms. Komatireddy said. “Yet she’s outsourced $20 million of her work to expensive private law firms, at the taxpayers’ expense. That’s a racket.”
State records show roughly 145 individual donors affiliated with outside counsel firms contributed approximately $23,000 to Ms. James’s political operations.
In February 2023, immediately after a sexual harassment lawsuit was filed against Ms. James and the Office of the Attorney General, she retained Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. To date, taxpayers have paid Davis Polk $539,624.18 out of a contracted $575,000 to defend Ms. James against charges that she covered up serial sexual harassment by a senior aide. (Governor Kathy Hochul’s husband is of counsel at Davis Polk.) Taxpayers absorbed the entire bill.
In September 2025, after being served with two federal subpoenas, Ms. James hired the private firm Munger Tolles & Olson LLP. To date, taxpayers have paid Munger $1,445,647.08 out of a contracted $2.5 million to challenge the subpoenas. This includes paying for a former U.S. solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, who charges $1,650 per hour, to argue the case in court, even though Ms. James’s office already has another former U.S. solicitor general, Barbara Underwood, on its payroll.
“When public employees get sued for their work, it’s the job of the attorney general’s office to defend them. Our police officers, our nurses, our teachers all must rely on government lawyers for their legal defense. But apparently that’s not good enough for Ms. James. When she got sued, she hired expensive white-shoe law firms and sent the invoices to the rest of us,” Ms. Komatireddy said. “Taxpayers have a right to be outraged.”
Komatireddy also noted that the state budget continued to include a $10 million set-aside for Ms. James’s personal legal defense.