Two other teams of local and Washington lawyers sought the lucrative contract
Clint Vince, the Washington, D.C., lawyer who has been the New Orleans City Council's chief legal adviser on regulating Entergy New Orleans for a quarter-century, still has his contract today, but for how long is anyone's guess.
New Orleans City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer After 2 1/2 hours of debate Thursday on whether to renew Vince's contract and those of its other utility consultants, the council voted 6-1 Thursday to retain Vince's services, but only on a month-to-month basis. The council could revisit the issue as early as February.
Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer voted against rehiring Vince even on a temporary basis. She said she wanted to choose one of the two other teams of local and Washington lawyers seeking the council's lucrative contract, but she refused to say which one she favored.
As they did last week before the council's Utility Committee, Vince and his colleagues from the Washington firm SNR Denton made a presentation to the full council on why they should be retained.
They were followed by the two other applicants. First came the Washington firm Schiff Hardin and the local firm Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, usually known as Sher Garner. The Sher Garner lawyers have little experience in energy law, but the Schiff Hardin team includes several lawyers who worked with Vince at one of the other firms where he was based before he moved to SNR Denton.
The other application came from Duncan & Allen, the Washington firm with which Vince was associated at the time he began working for the City Council in 1983. It applied in association with three local lawyers: former Councilwoman Suzanne Haik Terrell, Maria Julianna Auzenne and Kara French.
Several council members said they were very impressed with what Councilman Jon Johnson called "three very good proposals" from "three quality firms." But Johnson said the council wants to think further about how it will structure its utility regulatory operations in the long run before hiring any of the firms on a long-term basis.
New Orleans is highly unusual among U.S. cities in regulating its electricity and natural gas companies itself rather than through a state commission.
The council's contracts with Vince and the other lawyers, accountants and technical experts who help it regulate Entergy New Orleans -- and, for natural gas service to Algiers, Entergy Louisiana -- expire at the end of the year, so the council had to make a decision of some sort Thursday.
Besides getting top-notch legal representation, council members have cited at least three other goals: to reduce their overall legal bills, to shift more of the work from a Washington firm like SNR Denton to local lawyers, and to hire its own in-house regulatory staff, who could take on some of the work now done by outside consultants.
Complicating the council's decision is the fact the city is facing major regulatory issues that its lawyers must deal with immediately. For example, the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington will hear arguments next month on the plans by Entergy Corp.'s operating companies in Arkansas and Mississippi to withdraw from the "system agreement" that for decades has governed Entergy and its component companies. The withdrawal of Entergy Arkansas could be particularly harmful to New Orleans ratepayers because it provides much low-cost power to the system.
Vince and his colleagues argued that only they are prepared to deal with those pressing issues, and Vince said his "28-year winning streak" for the council has helped save New Orleans customers billions of dollars. "You've given us your toughest utility cases, and we've won them for you," he said. He said the other two Washington firms cannot match his record.
The Schiff Hardin and Duncan & Allen representatives scoffed at those claims, saying they can match or exceed Vince's record of success before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and in the courts. One noted that the "system agreement" case to be argued next month is an appeal of a ruling that Vince lost.
Sherry Quirk and Regina Speed-Bost of Schiff Hardin said that when they were at the same firm as Vince, they often took the lead role in litigating City Council cases.
Vince's contract this year was for a maximum of $3 million. The Schiff Hardin and Sher Garner team said they would do the same work for 25 percent less and would shift an increasing share of the work to the local firm. The Duncan & Allen group proposed an even lower cap, $2.1 million for at least two years, with 75 percent of the work now done in Washington to be done locally within five years.
Vince said he would work within whatever budget the council sets and was willing to have more work done locally and to help the council create its own regulatory office.
Council President Jackie Clarkson told Vince he has done "exemplary work" and she has no complaints about it but she also wants to increase the share of the work done locally.
The council unanimously approved a one-year extension for Wilkerson & Associates, a local minority-owned law firm that Vince has worked with for 25 years. Wilkerson's 2011 contract was for $800,000. It will remain on the job even if Vince is replaced sometime in 2012.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.