Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- Gov. Rick Snyder has hired two outside attorneys in connection with the Flint drinking water crisis, including a criminal defense attorney retained to serve as "investigatory counsel," a Snyder spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Eugene Driker, a civil defense attorney, and Brian Lennon, a criminal defense attorney, were each awarded a contract worth $249,000 through Dec. 31, after which those contracts can be extended, Snyder spokesman Ari Adler told the Free Press.

The contracts, which are to be paid with state funds, are just below the $250,000 threshold for contracts requiring approval from the State Administrative Board, which meets in public to approve state contracts and grants. Adler said that was by design because the governor wanted to hire the attorneys quickly in early February, but the administration will be going to the State Administrative Board on March 8, seeking approval for additional spending on the contract with Lennon.

The legal contracts were first reported Wednesday by Crain's Detroit Business.

Adler said the work of an investigatory counsel includes searching and processing e-mails and other records.

The office of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is representing the governor and other state defendants in a raft of lawsuits that have been filed related to the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water and a possible link between Flint's drinking water and outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in the Flint area that killed nine people. Driker and Lennon would provide legal assistance in addition to what is being provided by the AG.

Driker, of Barris, Sott, Denn and Driker in Detroit, specializes in complex business litigation and alternative dispute resolution and has represented many of Michigan's largest corporations, including DTE Energy, Dow Chemical, Ford and GM, according to the firm's website. He has also represented the state of Michigan and served as a mediator in the Detroit bankruptcy case.

Lennon, of Warner, Norcross & Judd in Grand Rapids, specializes in criminal defense law, especially health care fraud and other white-collar and drug offenses, corporate internal investigations, and compliance issues, according to the firm's website. He is a former federal prosecutor in Virginia and in the western district of Michigan.

Flint's drinking water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged it failed to require the addition of needed corrosion control chemicals to the water. As a result, lead leached from pipes, joints and fixtures into an unknown number of Flint households, causing a spike in the levels of toxic lead in an unknown number of Flint children.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.