UC’s Legal Fees in Fertility Clinic Scandal Total $568,436 : Litigation: Added to $918,000 in settlements paid to three whistle-blowers, the tab for the fiasco at the Irvine facility is more than $1.48 million--and mounting.

The University of California has spent $568,436 over the past eight months in outside legal fees related to the scandal at UC Irvine’s fertility clinic, officials said Thursday.

*

Counting the $918,000 in settlements paid to three whistle-blowers who tried to report problems at the clinic, the running tab for the fiasco at UCI is at least $1.48 million. That does not include the time spent by university attorneys on the matter and other non-legal expenses.

“I’m not happy with how much it costs to proceed in the American legal system,” said Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney H. Golub, referring to the mounting bill. “It is expensive, but we have made every effort to negotiate favorable rates with outside counsel [and] to monitor their expenses.”

The legal fees will go to three outside firms for work on the university’s lawsuit against three doctors and on responding to 30 medical malpractice actions by patients, UCI officials said Thursday.

The money also covers UCI’s efforts to cooperate with state and federal investigations, the costs of internal investigations and legal fees related to nearly 200 public records requests by the media. The tab covers Jan. 31 through Aug. 25.

The university released the tally two months after refusing to do so on the grounds that it would reveal UCI’s “litigation strategy” against the doctors.

Golub said Thursday that the University of California general counsel’s office changed its opinion after UCI officials urged the release of the information. The release was delayed further because it took time to assemble the information, Golub said.

Money for the legal fees comes from the UC system’s self-insurance fund and from the budget of the financially strained UCI Medical Center.

The tab is destined to rise significantly as the university presses its May lawsuit against the doctors to obtain patient and financial records, and as an increasing number of patient claims wend their way through the legal system. Resolving the legal disputes could take years, UCI officials said Thursday.

UCI estimates that as many as 35 women were victims of an alleged egg misappropriation scheme. The doctors, Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone, also are accused of financial and research misconduct. They deny any intentional wrongdoing.

The university’s legal fees do not reflect the costs of defending the doctors against patient claims, only the university’s own costs. The University of California already has refused to defend the doctors in the first lawsuit filed on behalf of a couple who claim their eggs were stolen, contending that the trio acted outside the scope of their employment. It will decide whether to defend the doctors in other lawsuits on a case-by-case basis.

Meanwhile, the three physicians are on paid leave from the university faculty, still collecting annual salaries totaling nearly $300,000. UCI is seeking to fire all three, but officials estimate that the elaborate termination process will take at least a year.