The California state attorneys’ union filed a lawsuit Thursday objecting to a state department’s hiring of outside lawyers in high-profile cases against video game companies Riot Games and Activision Blizzard.

The state agency formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which in July became the Civil Rights Department, claimed it needed to hire outside firms due to conflicts of interest in both cases over the last four years, according to documents filed with Thursday’s lawsuit.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment argued those claims were unsupported. Its president, Tim O’Connor, said the department’s actions could open the door to rampant outsourcing of union-covered state jobs if left unchallenged.

“This would basically open up the floodgates for state agencies to hire outside counsel with unfettered discretion,” O’Connor said.

California has laws aimed at protecting state jobs from outsourcing, but contracting conflicts periodically erupt between unions and state departments. They were particularly pronounced under former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed public-private partnerships.

The union filed the lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court against the State Personnel Board, saying the board wrongly approved the outsourcing after the union filed complaints. The lawsuit asks a judge to set aside the SPB’s prior decisions and to rule against the department’s contracts with law firms Olivier Schreiber and Chao and Outten and Golden.

State Personnel Board spokeswoman Camille Travis declined to comment on pending legal matters.

Equal pay lawsuits at video game companies

The Civil Rights Department filed lawsuits in 2018 and 2021 against Riot Games and Activision, alleging the companies had violated California’s equal-pay and anti-discrimination laws with their treatment of women employees.

The department joined a class-action lawsuit against Riot Games that resulted in a December 2021 settlement agreement awarding women employees of the company $100 million and imposing a consent decree that includes monitoring the company’s hiring and promotion.

The department has also objected to a proposed $18 million settlement with Activision Blizzard, proposed in March by the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, according to a department news release.

The Civil Rights Department hired private law firms in both cases due to separate allegations of conflicts of interest.

In the Riot Games case, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the department was fighting over the company’s appeal of a discovery order.

Normally, the state Office of the Attorney General steps in to handle appeals on behalf of state agencies. But the Civil Rights Department argued the AG’s involvement would be inappropriate in the Riot appeal, since the AG’s office was on the opposite side of the department in another case — a Civil Rights Department lawsuit against the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

‘Hire more attorneys’

The attorneys’ union argued in its lawsuit — and in a State Personnel Board case that preceded it — that even if there were a legitimate conflict, the Attorney General’s Office could easily set up safeguards against the attorneys on the corrections department case having any communication with those on the Riot Games case.

In the Activision Blizzard case, several former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attorneys had begun working at the Civil Rights Department. The commission, which held a different position on the Activision settlement than the department, claimed the department’s employment of its former attorneys constituted a conflict.

State Personnel Board Executive Director Suzanne Ambrose, and then the full board following an appeal, determined the conflicts constituted valid reasons under California state codes to outsource the state jobs, even though the bar for a conflict is lower for state attorneys than for private law firms.

O’Connor, the CASE president, said the union has approved outsourcing decisions in cases where the union agreed there was a legitimate conflict. But he said legal outsourcing, which is typically much more expensive than paying state attorneys, is becoming too common.

“Millions and millions of dollars get spent on outside counsel in instances where we believe the skill exists by our members to do the work,” O’Connor said. “And if they don’t have enough legal force in a particular agency, you hire more attorneys.”

This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 12:41 PM.