So far, there are potentially long and very expensive legal battles looming in three state Senate races – Johnson v. Martins (7th SD), Oppenheimer v. Cohen (37th SD) and Thompson v. Grisanti (60thSD).

These fights are shaping up to be quite lucrative for election attorneys. The Buffalo News’ Bob McCarthy said last night on the CapTon reporters roundtable that he had counted no fewer than nine lawyers in court yesterday for the initial hearing on the 60th SD.

One of those attorneys, former Senate Minority Leader Marty Connor, predicted the proceedings could last weeks or even months. If that’s the case, it’s going to cost a bundle for both sides. I’m told the price tag could be as high as $1 million each.

As of the 11-day pre-general election filing, the Democrats had just $227,989.07 on hand and had borrowed $750,000 form the National Bank of NYC (the preferred bank for the conference, and if the terms are the same as last loans, then members are personally on the hook).

The Senate Republicans, on the other hand, had $2.5 million on hand and no debt.

Both sides raised cash prior to Election Day, particularly Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, who managed to take in at least $114,500 in the days leading up to Nov. 2 in spite of the AEG report cloud looming over his head.

Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran told me the conference planned to leave it “all out on the field” in hopes of retaining the majority, explaining: “Money is raised to be spent. Money does no good for you in the bank. It only wins elections if it’s put into the field.”

As it turns out, however, the Democrats should probably have kept some cash in reserve.

We won’t know how much either side has left until the first post-election filing, which comes on Nov. 29 – 27 days after the election. But it’s a safe bet that both the GOP and the Democrats are now scrambling to raise some money to pay for their recount efforts.

The only trouble is that donors who want to hedge their bets (and many did heading into this election, being reluctant to choose sides for fear of picking wrong and getting shut out in 2011), are now going to be even more reluctant to pony up.

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