Summary Judgment is American Lawyer senior writer Susan Beck’s regular opinion column for the Litigation Daily.

Why is it that when a state hires a private contractor to build a road, and the contractor makes a nice profit, the business community cheers? But when the state hires outside lawyers to pursue litigation on behalf of the state and its residents, and the lawyers might possibly make some money, business interests rise up to protest this "unethical" conduct?

The cynical side of me figures that a big swath of the business community—especially the national and local chambers of commerce—will object to anything plaintiffs lawyers do. And my rational side? Well, that side also thinks that big business just can’t stand seeing plaintiffs lawyers make money on anything.

So I was reassured on Tuesday to see that the West Virginia Supreme Court has allowed the state’s attorney general to use outside counsel to handle major litigation on a contingency fee basis. In this ruling, the court dismissed the unfounded claims of several big banks and GlaxoSmithKline that the AG’s hiring of outside counsel as special assistant attorneys general had created an ethical quagmire.

The court chided the defendants for presenting a speculative parade of horrors. "The most glaring deficiency in the arguments made by [the banks and GSK] is that there was not one allegation that the special assistant attorneys general have actually engaged in any improper conduct that has caused an injury," the court wrote. "The law of disqualification cannot rest on the imagination of opposing counsel."

The 5-0 ruling dispensed with challenges brought by defendants in two cases. In one, the AG hired outside lawyers to help sue financial services companies for allegedly tricking consumers into paying for credit card service plans. In the other, the state is using outside counsel to pursue GlaxoSmithKline for alleged deceptive practices in the marketing of its diabetes drug Avandia. You can read the banks’ petition here. GSK’s is here, and an amicus brief by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce is here.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey released a statement that read in part: "The ruling ensures the Office will continue to have the ability to prosecute consumer protection cases in an effective and efficient manner….In short, this was a major victory for this office and our pursuit of making it the best law firm in the state."

I reached out for counsel to the defendants—including Nina Gussack at Pepper Hamilton for GSK and Kara Cunningham Williams of Steptoe & Johnson for Discover Financial Services—but did not hear back. A spokesperson for GSK said the company was disappointed with the court’s ruling and continues to believe that the state’s use of outside contingency lawyers "violates GSK’s due process right to a fair and unbiased prosecutor who is not motivated in his prosecutorial judgments by personal monetary gain."

This is just the latest in a series of failed attempts by corporate defendants to squelch the hiring of outside lawyers for government lawsuits. As the Litigation Daily reported last week, GSK filed a similar challenge in Louisiana, which a state judge refused to grant. (The company is appealing.) In May Merck & Co. Inc. failed to convince a Kentucky federal district judge to stop the state AG from hiring contingency lawyers to help sue the company over its marketing of Vioxx. The California Supreme Court also ruled in 2010 that the state could hire outside lawyers for a contingent fee. But big business isn’t giving up. In Nevada, a challenge to the hiring of contingency lawyers by the state’s AG was argued Wednesday before the state’s highest court.

The defendants in these cases argue that outside plaintiffs lawyers have a conflict because they’re motivated to get big fees. But since when did a profit incentive disqualify someone from working for the state? If a case has no merit, a judge can dismiss it, and the lawyers won’t get anything. And any fees for outside counsel must be approved by a judge, which is a level of oversight that doesn’t exist when a contractor is paid for building a road. The West Virginia Supreme Court emphasized this point in Tuesday’s ruling, with a jab at the defendants: "The Petitioners appear to not fully understand that the issue of the amount of attorney’s fees is purely discretionary with the trial court."

Plain and simple, a state’s hiring of outside counsel helps level the playing field. Businesses that believe in free enterprise should have no objection to competing on those terms.