It seems hell hath no fury like a general scorned. Attorney General Spitzer was for once on the wrong side of litigation earlier this month when the investment advisory fund, J. & W. Seligman & Company, dared to challenge his authority and filed a federal lawsuit asking a court to stop the attorney general “from involving himself in a matter reserved by Congress to the Securities and Exchange”.

The lawsuit alleged Mr. Spitzer “has done so by way of subpoenas and by threats to bring enforcement proceedings against Seligman for allegedly ‘excessive’ advisory fees.” Mr. Spitzer has yet to respond to that lawsuit, but instead yesterday he started separate legal proceedings against Seligman in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

Mr. Spitzer asked the court to order Seligman to produce additional information relating to mutual fund timing activities at the firm. Seligman’s attorney, Daniel Pollack, of Pollack & Kaminsky, told The New York Sun that instead of filing a simple “two page” procedural motion, Mr. Spitzer appended to his legislation unnecessary pages of “evidence” against Seligman – a now all-too-familiar Spitzer-tactic for scaring firms into submission. It seems that some firms calculate that any deal with Mr. Spitzer is better than having their reputations destroyed before they have a chance to respond. The Associated Press was so bowled over by Spitzer’s flurry of evidence that it erroneously filed a story claiming Spitzer was suing Seligman (this was corrected in later versions). Mr. Pollack describes Mr. Spitzer’s efforts as a “public relations campaign” using the court as a way of “airing selective documents” that were “taken out of context” from Seligman’s files to embarrass the firm into submission.

When we asked Mr. Spitzer’s office why it didn’t just put in a simple “two page” request and whether it was fair to put out all this “evidence” against Seligman without giving the company an opportunity to respond, all a spokesman would say was that they are “public documents” and that the “company filed a lawsuit against Mr. Spitzer” so it did have its chance to respond. Seligman is the first big financial firm that refused to cower before Mr. Spitzer and instead went to court to take him on. It appears that he’s now trying harder to scare them into submission before their case is heard in court. It’s a shame Mr. Spitzer doesn’t follow the lead of the district attorney in Brooklyn, Charles Hynes, and take on the criminals in his own party rather than soft targets like financial institutions who usually easily give up.