19E - AUTHORIZATION FOR RFQ LEGAL SRVS

Home Browse Search

REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: JUNE 3, 2013 TITLE: AUTHORIZATION TO RELEASE REQUESTS FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR SPECIALIZED LEGAL COUNSEL SERVICES CI ANAGER RECOMMENDED ACTION CLERK OF COUNCIL USE ONLY: APPROVED ? As Recommended ? As Amended ? Ordinance on 151 Reading ? Ordinance on 2nd Reading ? Implementing Resolution ? Set Public Hearing For_ CONTINUED TO FILE NUMBER Authorize the City Attorney to issue request for qualifications for specialized legal services. DISCUSSION Background The Santa Ana City Attorney's Office (CAO) is responsible for providing all legal services for the City of Santa Ana, its related entities and City boards and commissions. In recent years the CAO has reduced full time attorney staff from 15 to seven at the present time. The City Council's approval of a hybrid City Attorney has created an opportunity to carefully examine the work being done by the office from both a private and public sector approach. This opportunity has resulted in the establishment of practice groups, an analysis of the equivalent "billable hours" capacity in the office, the identification of technologies to increase productivity and efficiency and acknowledgment that certain specialized legal services are best provided by outside legal counsel. Analysis In the CAO's proposed two-year budget for 2013-15 the City Attorney identified actions to support the two-year approach. One item was to contract out "specialized services" rather than providing these services on a more costly "on-call" basis. The City currently has existing agreements with law firms to provide various services. These agreements have various terms and in some cases have not been reviewed for more than five years or more. The RFQ process will allow the CAO to identify competitive proposals and 19E-1