Supermarkets Hire Supreme Court Specialist

American Stores has rolled out a big gun to handle its legal battle with the California attorney general’s office now that an appeal has been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rex E. Lee, 54, who served as U.S. solicitor general during President Reagan’s first term and is now president of Brigham Young University, has taken on the case in his capacity as “Supreme Court specialist” with the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin.

“I’m very good friends with American Stores,” Lee said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his university office in Provo, Utah. “I don’t do this for everyone.”

American Stores, based in Salt Lake City, has been embroiled in a yearlong showdown with state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp over whether it should be allowed to integrate its Lucky and Alpha Beta supermarket chains. Van de Kamp challenged the merger on antitrust grounds.

Former Teacher

Lee, who joined the Washington office of Sidley & Austin in 1985 after resigning as the government’s chief advocate, said most of his work as a law partner since then has been in Supreme Court cases. He chose to take this one, he said, because of his friendships with American Stores executives, including Jonathan L. Scott, vice chairman and chief executive and Michael T. Miller, a senior vice president.

Lee, a former teacher at Brigham Young, assumed the presidency of the Mormon-controlled college last month.

In a cryptic, last-minute order Monday, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor continued the prohibition that has prevented the merger of the two chains since last September.

Among other issues, O’Connor’s order did not address the matter of whether California’s attorney general should be required to post a $16.3-million bond to pursue his case with the high court. Van de Kamp has challenged the bond, imposed by a federal judge, on the grounds that he was suing on behalf of consumers.

Late Monday, Lee said, American Stores filed a document with the Supreme Court urging O’Connor to continue the bond requirement.

On Tuesday, he and other American Stores attorneys were awaiting a written order that they hoped would clarify that and other questions.

If that request is denied, Sidley & Austin is expected to file its opposition to Van de Kamp’s request that the Supreme Court review the case.