Auburn University says it has spent approximately $170,000 in attorney fees on the Cam Newton case during the past 4 months.

Auburn Senior Associate Athletics Director Scott Carr said Tuesday the fees started in mid-October and have all gone to Lightfoot, Franklin, White LLC, the university's Birmingham-based legal counsel.

Auburn provided the information in response to an open-records request by The Birmingham News.

The NCAA and Auburn agreed in December that Cecil Newton, Cam's father, committed an NCAA violation by working with an owner of a scouting service to actively market Cam in a pay-for-play scenario. Cam Newton was briefly declared ineligible and then was reinstated for Auburn's final two games in its national championship season.

Carr declined to comment on the status of the NCAA investigation into Newton's recruitment. In an ESPN.com interview published Tuesday, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive was asked if the NCAA's investigation into the Newtons remains open.

"You're going to have to ask them, but nobody has written me a letter that says it's over," Slive told ESPN.com.

Asked if Auburn anticipates more legal fees on the case, Carr replied by e-mail: "AU attempts to address compliance matters with internal staff to the extent possible. Whether it can do so depends in part on whether the questions asked require more staff time than is available internally."

Auburn's costs are approaching what Alabama paid on its NCAA major infractions case that ended in 2010. Alabama spent $188,443 over about a year for Bond, Schoeneck & King to defend the school when the NCAA ruled Alabama failed to monitor its textbook distribution system to athletes.

Hefty legal fees are a common cost of NCAA investigations, especially given what is at stake for the universities defending themselves.

Michigan spent more than $600,000 with Lightfoot, Franklin, White in its recent major infractions case, according to AnnArbor.com.

Connecticut paid Bond, Schoeneck & King $338,000 over 12 months to investigate improprieties in its basketball program, and then sought approval to spend another $337,000, according to the Hartford Courant.

Indiana spent $460,840 with the firm Ice Miller through the first 17 months of an investigation into its basketball program, according to the Bloomington Herald-Times.

Over about 21/2 years, Florida State paid $228,863 to The Compliance Group, a Kansas-based consulting firm, and $59,845 to the GrayRobinson law firm in the school's academic fraud case.

E-mail: jsolomon@bhamnews.com

Twitter: twitter.com/jonsol