The law firm bringing a suit against the state’s elections agency advised the Legislature on how to write the very law it is suing over.

Republican lawmakers hired Michael Best & Friedrich and the Troupis Law Office to help them draw new legislative maps this year and write legislation implementing those maps. Taxpayers paid the two firms $400,000 for the work.

That law was explicit in saying the new maps would take effect for recall elections starting in the fall of 2012.

“This act first applies, with respect to special or recall elections, to offices filled or contested concurrently with the 2012 general election,” it says.

That means any recall elections before then must be held in the old districts, according to the state Government Accountability Board, which runs state elections.

Now, Michael Best is representing a group of Republicans who have sued the accountability board, arguing any recall elections must be held using the new maps. The new maps favor Republicans.

Michael Best attorney Eric McLeod is representing the group and also advised lawmakers on redistricting. He declined to talk about discussions his firm might have had with lawmakers about what implementation date to include in the legislation.

“I can’t comment on the legal advice we provided to our client,” McLeod said.

While the law says the new maps are not to take effect for recalls until the fall of 2012, McLeod said the accountability board should have ordered that any new elections from now on be held in the new districts. That’s because the old districts are no longer constitutional because some of them include significantly higher populations than others.

The group McLeod represents has asked the state Supreme Court to take up the case or appoint a panel of three county circuit judges to hear its case. The high court has not said what, if anything, it will do in the case.