The city of Everett spends a lot of money on attorneys. I first noticed that while doing one of my regular reporter chores: reviewing every check the city writes for more than $200. The observation came about the same time Everett began wrestling with legal fallout from the 2009 shooting involving E
verett police officer Troy Meade. My colleague, Diana Hefley, had questions about legal bills, too.
The Herald decided to take a closer look.
As a reporter, it’s part of my job to keep an eye on how the city spends the people’s money. I’m also an Everett taxpayer. I wanted to understand why city officials thought it prudent to spend big bucks to consult with lawyers, including a few who charge up to $420 an hour. The city has its own attorneys, after all.We began making public records requests for attorney billings. I spent many hours poring over them. Though heavily redacted, they still provided important details. For example, those records helped Hefley ask the right questions to break the news that Everett picked up the $240,000 bill for Meade’s criminal defense. The bills also showed that the city was being charged every time reporters called a civil attorney on the Meade case. He usually gave us a big “No comment,” and then submitted a bill.
To their credit, city officials didn’t grumble about providing us records regarding legal billings. It is the law. Recently they provided spending summaries for each law firm since 2000. The total: roughly $16.5 million. That’s enough money to operate the parks department, both of the city’s libraries, the animal shelter and the senior center, combined, for a full year.
The city works with outside attorneys when matters become too complicated or specialized for staff, city attorney Jim Iles explained. Good counsel can actually save taxpayers money by preventing costly lawsuits or avoiding expensive contractual mistakes, he said.
Here is more of what Iles told me in a recent email:
” … Retaining outside counsel who are experts in an area is often more cost effective than handling the case in house or consulting with one law firm on many different subject matters. For example, if the city faces a legal dispute over water rights, it is less expensive to retain a law firm that specializes in water rights than to keep a water rights expert on staff year round for the occasional water rights dispute or to pay to have a firm without that expertise get up to speed. That being said, for issues that regularly arise, we have in house attorneys who have broad knowledge in municipal law and are experts in certain areas. But as a full service city (providing police, fire, utilities, transit, library, animal shelter…) we would need to have tens of lawyers on staff to handle all issues in house.”
What questions do these billings raise for you?
Editor’s note: One of these firms, Davis, Wright, Tremaine, is The Herald’s legal counsel.
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