Rhode Island brought a case against lead paint manufacturers alleging, among other claims, public nuisance claims. The Rhode Island Supreme Court dismissed the suit, but also upheld the Attorney General’s authority to hire outside counsel on a contingent fee basis. The court began by noting the broad authority given to the Attorney General by Rhode Island’s constitution and statutes, and that this Court has historically tended to give deference to the strategic and tactical decisions made by the Attorney General. The court then held that “the Attorney General is not precluded from engaging private counsel pursuant to a contingent fee agreement in order to assist in certain civil litigation, so long as the Office of Attorney General retains absolute and total control over all critical decision-making in any case in which such agreements have been entered into.” There are four factors that must be included in an agreement with contingent fee counsel: “(1) that the Office of the Attorney General will retain complete control over the course and conduct of the case; (2) that, in a similar vein, the Office of the Attorney General retains a veto power over any decisions made by outside counsel; and (3) that a senior member of the Attorney General’s staff must be personally involved in all stages of the litigation; (4 )he Attorney General must not only “have absolute control over all stages of the litigation, but he or she must also appear to the citizenry of Rhode Island and to the world at large to be exercising such control.” The court held that the payment of the contingent fee was not a misappropriation of funds that rightly belonged to the General Treasury of the state, but was rather in the nature of an equitable lien on the amount recovered in the lawsuit.