It?s been said that hiring an attorney is akin to finding a dependable doctor, but when you?re sued as often as the Muscogee County School District, a more apt analogy may be a team of highly trained surgeons.
Like medical procedures, however, legal advice comes at a significant cost, and even a reduced rate adds up when multiplied by thousands of billable hours. So perhaps it wasn?t surprising last year when, at a time of financial uncertainty, school board members took a closer look at the Columbus law firm that has represented the district for as long as anyone can remember.
Among the questions board members wanted answered: Is the school district shelling out too much for legal fees? Would it be worthwhile to hire an in-house lawyer or look at other firms?
After discussing some alternatives, board members in October opposed a change by a clear margin. And they appear poised this week to maintain the status quo when they select a parliamentarian and legal counsel for the district, an annual appointment that has rarely drawn any measure of attention.
In interviews this month, board members said they?re convinced taxpayer dollars are best spent with the experience of Hatcher, Stubbs, Land, Hollis & Rothschild, adding they expect the firm to be more accountable under a new quarterly reporting system. The Ledger-Enquirer also obtained statistics -- annual legal fees from comparably sized school districts in Georgia -- that Superintendent Susan C. Andrews presented to board members when they were weighing their options last fall.
?I?m at the point of ?Why change what works??? said board member Norene Marvets. ?As far as changing the system, I think that would be detrimental to Muscogee County. I think it was made quite clear that we were happy with (Hatcher Stubbs?) services.?
Going into Tuesday?s meeting, Andrews said board members haven?t directed her to look for new legal counsel.
?I think you have to ask yourself, ?Are you getting good value and are you getting a good service??? Andrews said. ?I think when the board looked at the information that I brought to them, the majority thought they were getting a good service and a good value.?
A ?litigious? time
Steeped in Columbus history, Hatcher Stubbs traces its roots back 140 years to 1872. The firm has a long history of representing leading businesses and public institutions, according to its website.
One of its oldest clients is the school district, which it has represented for more than half a century, handling discrimination lawsuits, personal injury actions, worker?s compensation cases, contract disputes and bond and tax issues, among other legal services. Because of the firm?s institutional knowledge of the district, its lawyers don?t have to ?reinvent the wheel? each time the school district faces a legal hurdle, said Sarah H. Sillitto, a partner at the firm.
?Not surprisingly, legal questions often repeat themselves or arise again but under different facts and circumstances,? Sillitto wrote in an email. ?Our firm maintains a database of prior legal research, opinions and advice that enables us to address such issues cost effectively and consistently when they do reoccur.?
Sillitto said the district generally spends about ?two-tenths of 1 percent of its overall budget? on legal services, noting the firm bills the district at a ?substantially reduced hourly rate? -- $165 for partners and $115 for associates -- that hasn?t changed since 2005.
Given the volume of work, Andrews said defending the school district?s legal interests is a full-time job for more than one attorney.
?We just live in such a litigious society, and things that never would have needed an attorney 20 years ago, people have attorneys dealing with them now,? Andrews said. ?We?re having to make sure that we?re abiding by the law, and we?re getting advice from the law firm on a multitude of things.?
There was a time when Andrews worried that legal advice was being sought by too many people within the school district. When she took the reins as superintendent in 2009, Andrews sought to cut costs in general, and she determined the district should stem its mounting legal fees if possible.
The district had paid its lawyers some $700,000 in fiscal year 2008 and managed to top that sum the following year, an increase from 2004 and 2005 when the bills hovered closer to $400,000. Andrews attributed some of the additional fees during that time to an expensive lawsuit involving the use of land around the Columbus Public Library.
?I was concerned that there were more individuals having access to the law firm than should,? Andrews recalled, adding that there was not ?widespread? abuse of the service. ?Of course, the minute they pick up the phone, they are billed.?
Andrews limited access to the law firm to cabinet-level positions, or about nine people, so principals are no longer allowed to contact the firm directly, she said.
?Some things I can answer simply because I?ve done the work,? said Andrews, who made clear in interviews that she has never thought Hatcher Stubbs was overbilling the district.
Overall, legal fees paid from the district?s general fund fell to $590,176 last year from $786,363 in fiscal year 2009, a figure school officials say is less than or equal to legal fees in school districts of similar sizes. The Muscogee County School District has budgeted half a million dollars for legal expenses this fiscal year, roughly the same amount as the Richmond County (Augusta, Ga.) School District, which has a similar enrollment.
The Bibb County School District, meanwhile, has several thousand fewer students than Muscogee County. But school officials in Macon, Ga., paid some $732,000 last fiscal year in legal fees and have spent more than $3 million over the past five years on legal representation, according to Andrews.
Bibb County Board of Education members recently decided to hire in-house counsel at a six-figure salary, and also parted ways with a law firm that had represented the district for many years, outsourcing the district?s legal work to a law firm in Atlanta.
?I think part of it is we were just looking at another way of doing business,? Ron Collier, chief financial officer for the Bibb County district, told the Ledger-Enquirer last week. ?We feel like it will save us, but I?m really not sure exactly how much. The attorneys will have to work in collaboration.?
Weighing alternatives
In Muscogee County, the prospect of exploring a new legal framework in the school district was raised last year by board chairwoman Cathy Williams. At the time, Williams proposed school officials consider hiring an in-house attorney who would recommend legal counsel for all cases, negotiate fee structures, oversee billing and report back to the board.
Several board members pushed back, however, worrying a change would prove more costly. One board member, Naomi Buckner, cited problems with alternative models.
?If the board hired its own attorney, he or she would be under the supervision of the superintendent and could possibly compromise sound legal advice,? Buckner wrote in a letter to the Ledger-Enquirer last fall. ?Some board members were concerned that these in-house models could develop into large departments which could result in higher legal fees than what we have now.?
After reviewing data from other school districts and hearing from Georgia School Board Association attorney Phil Hartley, board members opposed Williams? motion 6-2. (Only board member Beth Harris voted with Williams to approve the measure, saying at the time that ?it seems like bad business on our part to not give other legal firms a chance.?)
?My thought was there was no evidence that it would save us any money,? said board member Patricia Hugley Green, who opposed the measure.
Williams, in a recent phone interview, said her goal had been to put into place a ?legal watchdog? to make sure the district was getting the best bang for its buck.
?I was just trying to get a little more accountability for what we pay in legal services,? she said, stressing that she respects her colleagues? dissent and no longer supports the change. ?Absent somebody really aggressively reporting what the heck is going on out there, we?re in a void as to what these legal costs are being spent on.?
To close that void, board members are now receiving quarterly updates on the landscape of litigation in the district.
?It?s going to be one of those things where we build the airplane as we fly it because the firm is trying to find a way to give us enough information where we have some breadth of understanding of the scope (of legal services) without it being so detailed that they lose us in the process,? Williams said. ?This new reporting system has given me a much better understanding of just the sheer volume of cases being litigated at any given time.?
Board member Mark Cantrell said, ?I knew by the board meeting that night that Hatcher Stubbs was going to be a better lawyer than the day before,? referring to the October vote. ?When you?re put on the stand, you?re going to be better.?
Source: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/01/15/1893689/after-weighing-change-in-legal.html
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