Legal professionals advising Mayor Alvin Brown about his transition made just four recommendations, unlike many of the other 18 teams that suggested many more.
The Transition Legal Committee also issued just a six-page report, briefer than most other committees.
Its recommendations:
• Permit the Office of General Counsel to provide substantial input toward its budget allocations and needs.
• Retain the Office of General Counsel representation of all clients — even those with specialized needs — for legal needs common to all City entities.
• Require the Office of General Counsel to discuss with its lawyers the recognition of conflicts.
• Review and revise the fee structure and billing rates assigned to lawyers and clients within the Office of General Counsel so that the rates have a meaningful correlation to a budgetary need.
The committee reported that it met five times and invited guests and speakers, including General Counsel Cindy Laquidara; former General Counsels Fred Franklin and Chuck Arnold, who is a Circuit judge; Deputy General Counsels Steve Rohan and Howard Maltz; and several others, including JEA CEO Jim Dickenson.
It communicated through email to other former general counsels, City constitutional officers and independent authorities, and to former General Counsel and mayoral candidate Rick Mullaney through a staff liaison.
It made observations covering attorney billing, control of some components of the office budget, conflicts, the relationship between the office and its clients and qualifications for serving as general counsel.
Attorney billing
The report said the Office of General Counsel engages in a billing process similar to that in private law firms, recording the hourly work of its attorneys and charging the client agencies and independent authorities an amount equal to the number of hours worked by attorneys within the office on a given legal matter multiplied by the established legal rate.
Tracking the billing hours for the office has a dual purpose, it said: It allows the office to monitor the use of its attorneys and the efficiency of the legal services, and tracking the hours is necessary to provide bills to clients that are independent authorities, such as JEA, the Jacksonville Aviation Authority, the Jacksonville Housing Authority, the Jacksonville Port Authority, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and the Duval County School Board.
“Legal work performed for departments is essentially a bookkeeping matter consisting of no actual payment of funds,” the report said. “Consequently, these billing/legal representation dynamics to the authorities and school board have material impact on actual taxpayer dollars.”
The committee said it learned that the billing rates set by the office “are arbitrary in nature and do not necessarily correspond to the complexity of legal work being performed or to the prevailing market rate for comparable legal services rendered by attorneys in private practice with the same level of experience.”
According to the committee, the billing rates for the executive branch and City Council “are immaterial since the expenses associated with providing their legal services are ostensibly covered in full by the OGC budget.”
However, it said, the independent authorities pay “real money” to the City for the legal services from the office.
According to the report, the independent authorities typically pay “substantially less money” for legal services from the office than they would if the services were from a private law firm.
However, the committee said it heard from clients who thought they could save significant sums of money if permitted to hire their own in-house general counsel with experience in highly specialized legal areas, such as energy regulation and special education.
The committee also said that billing rates of the office “are not intended to be set according to prevailing market rates, but rather with the goal of partial cost recovery for the legal services rendered.”
Office budget
The committee said it learned the office “currently lacks effective control — and perhaps the ability to provide any meaningful input — on several components” of its budget that can greatly affect its work.
It said that chief among the areas where a lack of control is “problematic” are expenses related to information technology.
“The OGC has a need to implement functional IT consistent with the demands of a comprehensive law practice, and the committee learned — with marked astonishment — of makeshift measures used by OCG attorneys and staff to cope with the shortcomings of the current IT infrastructure.”
In addition, the committee learned that the City might lack sufficient underwriting for First Amendment claims, “an issue that has posed great difficulty in other jurisdictions.”
Also, the committee said that while the office budgets sufficient funds for judgments related to personal injury claims, “the City does not allocate funds for the payment of general litigation claims and risk management.”
Conflicts
While attorneys practicing law are generally prohibited from simultaneously representing clients with adverse interests, the prohibition “does not often extend to the work of the OGC, which frequently counsels clients that often find themselves in adverse positions,” such as the mayor’s office and Council.
The committee said it heard “on repeated occasions” from people who raised examples of conflicts that might arise, including an example related to a franchise fee.
Also, it learned that attorneys in the office do not receive formal training in the identification and handling of potential conflicts.
Relationship with clients
The committee heard positive comments about the quality of the office’s legal work and received repeated suggestions that the office is the best entity to address legal issues and concerns common to all of its
clients, such as labor and employment law matters and litigation claims common to all City entities.
“However, the committee identified an issue with legal specialization — specifically in ensuring that lawyers with experience in areas of law unique to a particular client are assigned to that client,” said the report.
One client said that when an attorney is assigned from the office, the client spends time and resources familiarizing the attorney with knowledge specific to the client’s work.
“Unfortunately, the client is often frustrated by the reality that the lawyer is often reassigned by the OCG not long after having acquired the specialized knowledge, forcing the client to again devote time and resources on another newly assigned attorney,” it said.
The committee said it was suggested that independent authorities might have their needs better addressed by having their own general counsel or staff of lawyers.
General counsel qualifications
The committee said it will not play a direct role in the selection of the next general counsel but was informed of several qualifications it should suggest in considering a hire.
Laquidara remains as general counsel until Sept. 30.
Among the qualifications listed were management experience, especially in a large firm; approaching the position with a “careerist” view; some expertise in government law and litigation; respect in the legal community; an apolitical approach; demonstrated ability to exercise independent legal judgment; ability to recognize and address conflicts related to representation; and familiarity with alternative dispute resolution.
Another suggestion was that the general counsel should have some experience addressing legal issues in the context of a consolidated government.
The committee also heard conflicting suggestions, one that the next general counsel should be from Jacksonville to give confidence to the legal community and another that a national search should be conducted for candidates experienced in government law.
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