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Legal Services Analysis and Report City of San Leandro <br />February 2013 Municipal Resource Group <br /> <br /> <br /> 30 <br />staff and City Attorney time and cost has been spent discussing whether a service is <br />Basic or Additional. <br /> Establish a market‐based fee schedule and range for general and specialized City <br />Attorney services for the new fee‐for‐service arrangement. <br /> <br />In addition, the City should implement the following recommendations: <br /> <br /> Evaluate legal costs on a quarterly basis. <br /> Segregate third party costs that are incurred and paid for by Meyers Nave and <br />passed through to the City, such as court reporters, appraisers, experts, <br />investigators, jury fees and other similar costs. These costs should be segregated in <br />the City budget, City expenditure reports and in Meyers Nave invoices to be able to <br />distinguish Meyers Nave legal fees costs from third party costs. <br /> Create a “pool” of available law firms for basic tort litigation defense work to <br />maintain competitive rates and access to additional qualified defense counsel. <br /> Specialized litigation matters, such as land use, environmental, personnel, public <br />contracts, constitutional law, police and civil rights litigation matters should <br />continue to be provided under the new Legal Services Agreement with Meyers Nave. <br /> Authorize the City Manager, in consultation with the City Attorney and within City <br />Manager administrative and budget authority, to utilize additional outside counsel <br />for specialized services, when in his or her judgment, the best interests of the City <br />would be served. <br /> Prepare a City Procedure establishing reasonable guidelines as to whom, when and <br />under what circumstance a City staff member may access City Attorney services. <br />Include direction in the City Procedure that the purpose of accessing City Attorney <br />services must be for legal analysis, advice and work product not otherwise <br />obtainable or producible by City staff. <br /> Provide training to City staff on drafting resolutions, ordinances, agreement term <br />sheets and other documents, to expedite City Attorney work and where practical, to <br />focus City Attorney work on review of staff‐drafted documents. <br /> <br />