by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
The average taxpayer probably knows there’s a whole lot of legal work involved in running a city.
What Jacksonville taxpayers probably don’t know is a big chunk of that bill will never come due.
The City, like many municipalities, historically hired paid interns, third-year law students, to work each summer in the General Counsel’s Office.
Rick Mullaney decided to tinker with the system after he became general counsel in December 1997.
The Municipal Law Clinic opened in the fall of 1998. it was set up to operate year round, staffed by students who would work between 20 and 40 hours a week. Instead of pay, they got credit for their efforts through their schools.
“We would structure the program to expose them to various areas of practice,” said Mullaney. “Hopefully, it would be a very good experience for the law students.
“As time has shown, it’s turned out to be a very good experience for the office, our clients and the law students.”
Mullaney and Tony Zebouni, the program director, enlisted the help of deans at Florida Coastal School of Law and at the University of Florida. It has since expanded to nine law schools and six undergraduate schools.
In addition to his work with the clinic, Zebouni is the chief of the Commercial Litigation Division.
“Tony deserves much of the credit for the success of the program,” said Mullaney. “He has been proactive in contacting other law schools around the country; he assists all the students; he helps assign the work to all the department heads.
“He deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the success of this law clinic program.”
In addition to law students, the program attracts paralegals and those taking pre-law courses.
“One of the things that makes this work is the General Counsel’s Office has such a diverse civil practice because we have such diverse clients,” said Mullaney.
They include seven independent authorities, five constitutional officers, the executive and legislative branches of government, over 40 boards and commissions.
“That diversified client base gives students very diverse work and makes for a very good experience for them.”
Mullaney adapted the program from one he saw in place for criminal practice when he worked at the State Attorney’s Office.
“When I was over there, we used to have certificate programs in which students would come work for us,” he said. “They didn’t have a comparable thing on the civil side.
“It seemed to me it could work on the civil side as it did on the criminal side.”
The largest group, between 13 and 16 students, attended the clinic last summer. The least crowded semesters have only seen two or three.
To accommodate the extra help, the law library was renovated to make room for some carrels Some desktop computers were also installed. There’s even more room now that the office has gone wireless.
“The wireless capacity of our office was a great thing,” said Mullaney. “It freed us from those desktops and enabled us to use laptops throughout the law library. It expanded our ability to have more students.”
Using a conservative billing rate, something around $90 an hour, Mullaney estimates that the program has saved the taxpayers $1 million in legal services since 1998.
“If the billing rate were more reasonable,” he said, “it would probably be a couple million.”
His may not be the only law clinic program in Florida or the country, but Mullaney is convinced it’s better than any of the others.
“In part that’s because the General Counsel’s Office is so unique among municipal law offices,” he said. “We’re both a county and a municipal law office because of consolidated government.
“We can provide students a different kind of opportunity than they can get at any other municipal office in the state.”
Mullaney hopes — and expects — word of the program to spread to “some of the more prestigious law schools in the country.”
“Long term, I would like to get our brochure and the website on the desks at Duke and Virginia, and, quite frankly, Harvard and Yale,” he said. “We believe, if you spend your summer at the General Counsel’s Office, it will be a summer well spent.
“It would be great for your legal career, and you would get a lot out of that experience. And one day, with even more experience, you may consider coming back to the General Counsel’s Office on a full-time basis.”