One of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's closest friends and advisers is regularly taking on clients who pay him to get the governor's ear, help them in disputes with state agencies and serve as their advocate.

Lance W. Billingsley's clients have included a company that runs two of Maryland's juvenile justice facilities, a state contractor that collects child support payments and an Indian tribe trying to gain state recognition.

Billingsley, a lawyer who chairs the University of Maryland's board of regents, created a stir last month when he said he was launching a lobbying career.

He quickly said he would postpone those plans after critics suggested that the head of the university system shouldn't be a legislative lobbyist.

While there is no indication that Billingsley has lobbied before the legislature, he has quietly represented clients before the executive branch during the four years of the Glendening administration, The Sun has found.

Those clients have included the Piscataway-Conoy Indian tribe, Youth Services International Inc. and Lockheed-Martin IMS.

Billingsley said he is a "lawyer-advocate" for his clients, not a lobbyist as defined by state law.

He said he sees no problem in arranging for clients to meet with the governor or in intervening on their behalf with state agencies.

"I have had an extensive legal background in working with government, and as a result of that, I have been retained by clients to deal with governmental issues that they are having problems with," he said.

He said he was doing such work long before Glendening became governor.

Billingsley noted that under Maryland law, he would be required to register as a lobbyist only if he tried to persuade legislators to vote a certain way or urged a state agency to give one of his clients a contract. "I have never done that," he said.

Kathleen S. Skullney of Common Cause/Maryland said that while state law may not require Billingsley to register as a lobbyist, what he's doing is clearly a form of lobbying. She said she finds it troubling that a close friend of the governor is trying to exert influence.

"Obviously, [Billingsley's clients] are not paying a fee to visit with the governor's best friend," Skullney said.

"There's no way that these entities are going to pay money without believing there is going to be an economic benefit or some other benefit as a result."

The man the companies are hiring for thousands of dollars is a political mentor of Glendening's who helped the governor launch his career in politics.

Their friendship covers three decades, and he has long been part of Glendening's inner circle.

Glendening did not respond to a request for an interview, but his spokesman, Ray Feldmann, said the governor isn't troubled by Billingsley arranging for clients to meet with Glendening or being their advocate before state agencies.

"The governor strongly believes that Lance Billingsley is an ethical attorney and an ethical lobbyist," Feldmann said. "He is absolutely confident that Lance Billingsley operates in an aboveboard and an appropriate manner at all times."

In any event, Feldmann said, Glendening "bases every decision he makes on what he believes is best for the state as a whole" -- not on what Billingsley or anyone else might want him to do.

Billingsley won't name his clients or say how many he represents in matters before the state. The Sun independently found they have included the Piscataway-Conoy group, Youth Services and Lockheed-Martin.

Billingsley and some of those clients offered differing accounts of the nature and extent of his services, but in several cases it appeared there was as much lobbying as legal work involved.

The Piscataway-Conoy tribe

In 1997, Billingsley was paid what one participant recalls as $10,000 to help the Piscataway-Conoy Confederacy of Subtribes in its bid to obtain state recognition. As part of his services, he got the tribe a meeting with the governor.

Mark G. Westerfield, the tribe's lawyer, said Maryland developer Mark Vogel recommended Billingsley as someone who could help move forward the tribe's long-stalled efforts to be recognized.

"Billingsley, we were told, was pals with the governor," Westerfield said.

"Vogel said he was a means to go pitch a case to the governor. It's almost like if you want to go see the governor, you have to get a lobbyist."

A former lawyer for the tribe, Washington attorney Lewis A. Rivlin, recalled raising money from a financial backer so Billingsley could be paid the fee he was demanding before he would agree to get involved in the state recognition issue.

"I know there was some pressure to get his retainer paid," Rivlin said. "My best recollection is it was $10,000. I knew the $10,000 was just a starter."

Billingsley declined to say how much money he was paid, but he acknowledged working for the tribe and setting up the meeting with Glendening.

Westerfield said he does not recall Billingsley saying much at the meeting. He said tribal members wanted Glendening to press his housing secretary to approve the tribe's application for recognition and forward it to the governor for his signature.

Glendening raised concerns that the tribe would use recognition to bring casino gambling to Maryland, Westerfield said, and made no promises.

The tribe assured the governor that it has no plans to get involved with gambling, Westerfield said, but it has yet to receive state recognition.

Billingsley conceded that his friendship with Glendening helped the Indians get the meeting, but he said their failure to get the governor to do what they wanted shows that Glendening has his own mind on policy issues.

"Can I get Parris' attention? Yes. Do I have his ear? Yes. Will he do what I tell him to do? Absolutely not," Billingsley said.

"As a friend of the governor, I have access to the governor. I will not deny that. Whether that is a valuable commodity or not, others will have to judge."

Youth Services International

Another of Billingsley's former clients, Youth Services International (YSI), has a contract to run two juvenile detention facilities -- the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School and the Victor Cullen Academy.

The firm's current officers discovered in early 1997, shortly after they took over YSI operations, that the company had been paying Billingsley $2,000 a month. But they said the services he was providing were unclear.

Mark S. Demilio, YSI's senior vice president and general counsel, said he could not find anything in the files to indicate what Billingsley was doing for YSI. "We couldn't understand what service he was giving," Demilio said.

He and other top managers later met with Billingsley and were told he "just represented us generally" and was keeping track of developments at the state Department of Juvenile Justice that could lead to expansion opportunities for YSI, Demilio said.

He said YSI decided it no longer needed Billingsley's services and ended the relationship.

Henry D. Felton, YSI's chief executive officer until his departure in late 1996, said he couldn't recall why Billingsley was retained or specifically what services he provided the company, which had other lawyers.

In a written response to The Sun, YSI's founder and former owner, W. J. Hindman, said he had no recollection of any dealings with Billingsley.

For his part, Billingsley said he was brought in because YSI was having regulatory problems regarding the two detention centers and felt there was a "breakdown in communications" between YSI and state administrators. He said he worked with state administrators directly overseeing YSI's operations, whose names he could not recall, to help smooth out the problems.

Walt Wirsching, an assistant secretary of juvenile justice whose duties include overseeing contracts with private vendors -- including YSI -- said he had never heard of Billingsley.

He said he was not aware of any communication problems between his agency and YSI or of any significant regulatory problems that might require a company lawyer's intervention.

Wirsching's boss, Jack Nadol, the agency's deputy secretary, was equally mystified.

"I oversee all residential facilities, whether they are under contract or not, and I would be involved if there was a problem that needed to be corrected," Nadol said. "I don't know this guy [Billingsley] from Adam."

Billingsley said he did other work for YSI. Among other things, he said, he represented YSI in a complaint that went to the state attorney general's office and scouted expansion opportunities for the company.

Billingsley said his records indicate he started working for YSI in April 1995, three months after Glendening became governor. YSI first got a contract to operate the detention centers in 1993, under Gov. William Donald Schaefer. The contract is up for renewal.

Lockheed-Martin IMS

Billingsley would not comment when he was first asked about a third client, Lockheed-Martin IMS. The company won a multimillion-dollar state contract in 1996 to handle child support collections in Baltimore City and Queen Anne's County.

Asked whether Lockheed-Martin was a client, he said, "I'm not going to talk about any present clients. Ethically, attorney-client privilege prevents me from discussing who my [current] clients are and what I do for them."

Audrey Rowe, a Lockheed-Martin vice president, confirmed that Billingsley is an attorney for the company. She said that he was already on retainer when she arrived in 1996 and that he "advised the company on a whole range of contract issues, legal issues, ethics issues."

She referred further questions to Ron Jury, a Lockheed-Martin spokesman. Jury would not say when the company hired Billingsley, what services he provides or what he is paid.

Billingsley, while generally declining to discuss his work for the company, confirmed that he met with Glendening's new secretary of human resources early in 1995 to discuss the possibility that Maryland would let a private firm take over some child support collections.

Billingsley said he met with Secretary Alvin C. Collins as Lockheed-Martin's representative but wasn't trying to persuade Collins to support privatization of child support enforcement efforts.

"I was just fact-finding, getting a lay of the land," Billingsley said. "The discussion was what the attitude was about it."

Collins gave a similar account of their meeting.

With the Glendening administration's backing, the General Assembly passed legislation later in 1995 to allow child support services to be privatized. Lockheed-Martin won a three-year contract to provide the service in 1996.

Since then, the company has been involved in frequent disputes with the state, particularly over its failure to meet the collection goals it promised in its winning bid.

The state has assessed a $407,845 penalty on the company for failing to meet those goals and recently notified Lockheed-Martin that its contract will not be extended for a fourth year.

Lockheed-Martin officials contend that their collection goals were off target because they relied on inaccurate data from the state when they bid on the contract.

Pub Date: 3/07/99