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Corp Counsel King: These lawyers are good.
A request by the city’s top lawyer to boost the maximum compensation for the firm Howd & Ludorf from $99,500 to $167,700 sparked discussion about the cost of hiring outside lawyers to help New Haven fight lawsuits.
The request was debated Monday evening at a meeting of the Board of Alders Finance Committee.
At the end of the discussion, alders decided to hold off voting on the matter so it could be discharged to the full Board of Alders for a vote next month.
The city has dealt with a higher than usual volume of lawsuits requiring outside legal counsel in the 2019 – 2020 fiscal year, according to Deputy Corporation Counsel Roderick Williams.
Howd & Ludorf represents the city on nine cases, including wrongful murder conviction lawsuits filed by Vernon Horn and Marquis Jackson, who spent 17 and 19 years in prison respectively after they were charged with murder in 2000; as well as Bobby Johnson, who spent eight years in prison before he was exonerated.
The firm also represents the state case Doe v Board of Education, arising from the alleged sexual assault of a student by his drama teacher; Bogan v New Haven, which involves the delayed dispatch of emergency assistance to a victim of a life-threatening dog bite attack; as well as a police officer in an excessive use of force suit.
Howd & Ludorf’s fees for legal work done in the last fiscal year has surpassed the $99,500 limit on compensation. They charge $150 an hour, which Corporation Counsel Patricia King called “probably the best rate we could get from anybody ever, given the competency of the lawyers at this law firm”.
They do excellent work and we are lucky to have them,” King said.
She explained the proposed increase in the maximum compensation for the law firm by saying the firm has taken on a high volume of cases and needed to do more intensive legal work on preexisting cases in the past fiscal year.
Assistant Corporation Counsel Williams pointed to the cases Horn v. City of New Haven and Jackson v. City of New Haven, two federal civil rights suits. Vernon Horn and Marquis Jackson claimed they were wrongfully convicted of murder due to improper conduct and policies by the New Haven Police Department, leading to exonerating phone records being overlooked.
Williams explained that the law firm had to do extensive evidence discovery for the Horn and Jackson cases over the 2019 – 2020 fiscal year, including over 30 depositions. The lawyers had to travel as far as Florida and Washington D.C, and did not charge for those travel costs.
Underpaid And Insufficient?
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Board of Alders Finance committee meeting Monday evening about a raise request for outside law firms assisting the city on its lawsuits.
During Monday night’s meeting, Westville Alder Adam Marchand questioned whether it should be a goal for the city to do more legal work in-house by attorneys employed by the city council instead of hiring more expensive outside lawyers.
“We could certainly increase the number of attorneys, but we have to pay them. And to be honest with you, the city pay rates are on the low side of municipal attorneys,” said King. City attorneys are paid between $75,000 and $120,000 per year, according to King. There are currently five of them working on litigation for the city.
The average salary for a lawyer in Connecticut is $153,640, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2019 data.
“In order to get the attorneys with the capability and experience to defend some of the cases we have to pay them a substantial salary,” said King. “And that may be worth it. We have to do the math. But it’s a decision we have to make within the allocation of the city budget.”
But King said that this is not the fiscal year to increase the number of city attorneys or give them a pay raise. The city expected a $13 million budget deficit for the last fiscal year. The city budget has been strained by the pandemic and subsequent economic shutdown.
King also explained that outside counsel is needed in certain cases where more than one police officer is sued. The city cannot represent both or the multiple officers in such a case due to conflict of interest, so she said. So it needs to hire non-city lawyers to do so. On some higher-exposure cases, the outside counsel also has more access to paralegal help.
Marchand asked whether the city can expect to need continued substantial legal counsel from this law firm in the next year and beyond.
“Overall, the use of body cams by police officers has resulted in a decrease of the number of lawsuits against the police, so that has been a positive development for the city,” King said. “Other than that, I hope that we go back to a more normal, lower number of lawsuits brought against us.”
The corporation counsel’s office has not recently sent out a request for quotes from alternative law firms to see if their hourly rates are cheaper than Howd & Ludorf, according to King. They began discussing the possibility of doing it in January. Then the pandemic hit, preventing it from doing so in time for this fiscal year.