The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has quietly steered millions of dollars in legal work to private law firms while refusing to spell out the total bill for taxpayers. That lack of a clear number, surfaced through recent public records wrangling, has drawn fire from transparency advocates and some agency insiders who argue New Yorkers deserve a straight answer. With big contracts and tight budgets on the line, critics say the absence of a single, searchable tally makes it a lot harder to keep tabs on how the MTA is spending public money.
MTA Declines To Share Total Outside-Counsel Spending
According to a report in the New York Post, the paper filed a Freedom of Information Law request seeking both annual billing totals for outside lawyers and a grand total of all outside-counsel spending. In response, the MTA said the records were "not maintained in a manner which permits practical retrieval" and pointed to a decades-old database it described as unusable. The Post reports the agency acknowledged it does track those amounts and sends them each year to an independent auditor, but it still declined to hand over an aggregated figure.
Transparency Problems Have A Record
The pushback on producing a simple legal-billing total is not a one-off. Advocates have long complained that MTA legal payments are scattered across different categories that make big-picture scrutiny tough. In 2021, Gothamist reported that the agency turned down a disability group’s request for a full accounting of outside-counsel spending in accessibility cases, arguing that payments were not organized in the specific way the group had asked for. Open-government groups say responses like that effectively wall off the public from meaningful oversight.
In-House Team, But Outside Firms Remain Central
The MTA does have its own law department and publicly posts compensation and staffing information, yet it still leans heavily on private firms for major claims and complex litigation. Public pay reports list a range of law-department positions, and recent court filings name Deputy General Counsel Anna J. Ervolina as a lead attorney in tort cases for the authority. That arrangement, which combines a staffed internal team with sizable outside retainers, has fueled questions inside and outside the agency about when, and why, the MTA decides to bring in private counsel.
Records Show Millions Flowed To Private Firms
The Post’s review of records found that the authority paid out roughly $687 million in verdicts and settlements in 2019 and that numerous outside firms collected seven-figure checks. One firm reportedly received more than $5 million on its own. According to that reporting, payments to just six firms topped $10 million, and billings for the biggest players have surged in recent years. Some agency lawyers quoted in the story said those outside costs do not appear to face strong internal scrutiny.
Why The Numbers Matter Now
The timing is touchy. The MTA is under intense budget pressure and staring down labor talks that could shape service and costs across the entire region. Bloomberg has recently laid out the agency’s packed contract calendar and the risk of work stoppages as negotiations unfold with nearly 40,000 transit workers. With that backdrop, watchdogs argue that every discretionary dollar, including what gets shoveled to outside law firms, ought to be clearly accounted for.
What Comes Next
Transparency advocates and some lawmakers are expected to keep pressing the MTA for clearer reporting, including a searchable registry or at least a single, public total for outside-counsel spending. Open-government groups, including those highlighted by Gothamist, have previously urged the authority to publish basic contract information, and the recent FOIL response is likely to revive those demands. The MTA has defended its reliance on outside lawyers it says are "in the best position to fight back," but without a straightforward aggregate number, the debate over oversight and accountability is not going anywhere.
