2002_1021_packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Beets, Neal From: Beets, Neal Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 2:41 PM To: Greg Schroeder (gregschroeder@attbi.com) cc: ''RV Council Subject: RE: Attorney fees Greg (and all), here are my answers to your questions: "1) Do they (lets use Cambell Knutson for example) get a flat fee say up to $8,500 and anything above that they get $125/hour if a partner is used?? or do they bill on an hourly basis up to the flat monthly fee of $8,500??" First, all firms want to negotiate over the billing arrangement. Next, No, that is not how it works. All the firms have offered a proposed or estimated flat fee that we would pay every month that covers certain legal services regardless of few or how many hours the law firm spends providing those services, and then the law firm would bill hourly for services not covered by the flat fee. As an alternative, all the law firms have also offered to simply bill hourly for all legal services they provide. The theory of the flat fee or retainer is that the customer, us, is better off buying legal services, such as all city attorney services, rather than paying for time, such as hourly billing. Put another way, we are buying a car rather paying for each car part individually. The flat fee benefits the law firm because they know they will make $X dollars, even in a month that is light on hours worked. For these reasons, flat fees tend to reflect a discount from an hourly billing arrangement and tend to be a better deal for the customer IF the legal services included in the flat fee are comprehensive and IF the flat fee is set at the right amount that saves the customer some money without putting undue stress on the law firm. Using your example of Campbell Knutson, they offer to provide all non-litigation city attorney services that the City needs for a flat monthly fee of $8,500, regardless of whether in any particular month they attend a large number of city meetings and put in an usually large number of hours of legal work researching issues or an unusually small number of hours. The only thing they would bill for that is outside the flat fee would be defending the city in a lawsuit. If we prefer, as an alternative Campbell Knutson would simply bill hourly for ail meetings attended and all work performed, including litigation, at $125 per hour. "2) How does this work with the other firms listed??" 2. The other firms work out this way: Jensen Bell would provide some city attorney legal work for a flat fee of $4,800 per month; however, unlike Campbell Knutson, whose flat fee covers all city meetings and all city attorney legal work other than litigation, the Jensen Bell flat fee excludes real estate work (such as the Arona land sale agreement), excludes "personnel or internal organization matters" (such as employee discipline issues or the Fire Relief Association pension issue), excludes "special assessment work" (such as our lengthy consideration of special assessment policies), and excludes attendance at Council "workshops." For these matters that they exclude from their retainer Jensen Bell would charge $160 an hour in addition to receiving their retainer. Alternatively, rather than a retainer/flat fee for certain services Jensen Bell would simply bill all services at $160 per hour times however many hours they spend on city legal work. b. Kennedy and Graven would provide some city attorney legal work for an "estimated" flat fee of $6,000 per month; they say "estimated" because they ask in their proposal for a chance to get a better feel for how many hours they may have to spend on Roseville's legal work and then they would refine and revise their "estimated" flat fee. Again, unlike Campbell Knutson whose flat fee covers all city meetings and legal work other than litigation, the Kennedy Graven flat fee excludes "development and redevelopmenY' work (such as that related to Twin Lakes and Arona) and excludes "complex projects" (which is worrisome because we don't know what KG may consider "complex.") For these matters that they exclude from their retainer Kennedy Graven would charge $135 an hour. Alternatively, rather than a flat fee Kennedy Graven would simply bill all legal services at $135 per hour times however many hours they spend on city legal work. c. Like Campbell Knutson, Ratwik, Roszak & Maloney would provide all city attorney legal work other than litigation for a flat fee of $8,500 per month. "3) I see one firm only lists a flat fee, does that mean we get more for the $8,500 than the other firms??" 3. Ratwik Roszak only lists a flat fee of $8,500 per month. I suspect, however, that if we prefer not to do a flat fee arrangement and to be billed hourly for all the meetings and legal work they perform then Ratwik Roszak will do