The Browns’ football season may be over, but there’s no off-season for the lawyers squabbling over Browns stadium. The latest salvo between Browns’ lawyers Thompson Hine and Cleveland’s counsel Jones Day received plenty of attention this week.
That’s not the only legal wrangling happening behind the scenes.
Cleveland City Hall said it is parting ways with another firm, Ohio-based Bricker Graydon (formerly Bricker & Eckler), because the firm is representing Brook Park as the suburb tries to land a new, roofed Browns stadium.
Bricker had been helping Cleveland set up what’s called a “new community authority,” which would help raise money for waterfront development. In a letter to the firm Jan. 8, Cleveland’s law director wrote that the firm was helping the city do something similar to pay for Gateway ballpark and arena repairs.
The letter argued that representing both cities posed a conflict.
“The interests of Cleveland and Brook Park are directly and indirectly adverse with respect to providing a stadium for the Browns,” Law Director Mark Griffin wrote. “The team can only play in one city.”
The city provided a copy of the letter in response to a question from Signal Cleveland about the dispute.
There are good reasons Brook Park might want Bricker on its side. The firm represented the City of Columbus in the battle to stop the Crew from leaving town. That fight centered on Ohio’s “Modell Law” and ended favorably for the state capital when the Browns-owning Haslam family and others bought the soccer club.
Plus, the lead Bricker attorney for Brook Park is political veteran Bill Mason, the former Cuyahoga County prosecutor who served as chief of staff for County Executive Armond Budish. Mason took questions from Brook Park council members at a meeting in December.
The law firm has not yet provided a public response to Cleveland’s move.
Cleveland and Brook Park are old rivals. They’ve been in and out of court since the 1990s litigating disputes over Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport and the I-X Center.
