Three Jefferson Parish Council members would take over the task of screening outside lawyers to represent the government, under a proposal that Councilman Mark Spears Jr. has drafted to wrest that authority from a committee dominated by administration officials. Spears' ordinance is scheduled for a council vote on Wednesday. The measure could mark another round in the continuing tug-of-war...
Three Jefferson Parish Council members would take over the task of screening outside lawyers to represent the government, under a proposal that Councilman Mark Spears Jr. has drafted to wrest that authority from a committee dominated by administration officials. Spears' ordinance is scheduled for a council vote on Wednesday.
The measure could mark another round in the continuing tug-of-war between the council and Parish President John Young's administration. The two branches have tussled in recent months over contracting procedures for professional services, accountability and the parish president's authority to hire more employees outside the Civil Service system.
Spears would not discuss his proposal Monday, saying he will reserve comment until the council votes on it. "I want it to pass," he said.
Parish Attorney Deborah Foshee said she supports parts of the measure but balks at others.
Jefferson has 24 staff lawyers in the parish attorney's office. But it often hires outside counsel to represent the parish.
Some outside lawyers are paid from the general revenue fund. In those cases, lawyers interested in doing the work are evaluated by a committee composed of three administration officials and one Parish Council staffer, sometimes supplemented with an independent professional. The Parish Council then picks one lawyer or firm deemed by the committee to be qualified.
Jefferson Parish Attorney Deborah Foshee
But in most cases where Jefferson Parish's liability is covered by insurance, the parish must use a lawyer designated in the insurance contract, by mutual agreement between parish officials and the insurer. That resulted from a change sought by Michael Yenni's administration after he became parish president in 1988. Before then, the insurers unilaterally picked the lawyers.
Four law firms are allowed in the parish's general and auto liability insurance contract: Blue Williams; Connick & Connick; DeLaup & Enright; and Gaudry, Ranson, Higgins and Gremillion.
Four law firms are allowed in the parish's insurance contract covering public officials' liability: Blue Williams; Campbell, McCranie, Sistrunk, Anzelmo & Hardy; Connick & Connick; and Phelps, Dunbar.
Connick & Connick, where the named partners are District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. and his brother, Peter Connick, also has represented the parish in workers' compensation cases. "Most of them are small, and we never hear about them," Foshee said. Parish officials have no discretion to pick workers' comp lawyers, who are instead chosen by the policy's outside risk manager, Foshee said.
In 2012, these firms were paid at least $146,079 for work on insurance cases, according to figures provided by Foshee. That's a decrease of almost 90 percent from at least $1.2 million in 2010, when Young took office as parish president. The figures cover work only on cases that are now closed, Foshee said.
Foshee said the parish attorney's office has cut expenses on outside insurance counsel so deeply by taking handling some cases in-house and by "active oversight" of the outside lawyers.
It's not clear how Spears' ordinance would affect the evaluation of lawyers for insurance matters.
The proposal's most obvious effect would appear to be in the evaluation of lawyers for matters not covered by insurance. In those cases, the screening duty would fall to a committee of three council members, to be designated by the council, instead of the current committee of three administration officials, a council staffer and, on occasion, an independent professional.
Spears' proposal groups lawyers into four categories, depending on the type of work: litigation, bonding and other financial matters; elections; and miscellaneous.
Foshee said she's concerned that Spears' proposal does not put an independent professional, such as a representative of the Louisiana Bar Association, on the evaluation committee. "We're missing the technical expertise that we have on every other committee," she said.
Still, she applauded another section of Spears' measure, one that would let the council qualify interested lawyers twice a year for all miscellaneous legal matters. With that, the full council would have a screened pool at the ready when a new case arose, instead of needing to advertise every time for statements of qualifications from lawyers.
"I can't wait six weeks every time I need help," she said.