2006-11-18LSRC2.rpt - Laserfiche WebLink

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Accepted by Selectmen 12/4/2006 Legal Services Review Committee II Interim Report Nov. 18, 2006 Introduction and Background: The Board of Selectmen asked the Legal Services Review Committee II to undertake its review of the Town’s legal services in phases. The first phase was, in the words of the Board’s charge, to “review the Town’s legal activities and needs; evaluate common models for provision of these services . . .; and present to the Board an initial report outlining the advantages of each model for the provision of legal services to conduct and manage the Town’s legal efforts.” This interim report seeks to respond to this element of the Board’s charge. The Committee initially convened on July 19, 2006 and has now met a total of six times. The members of the Committee are: Peter Enrich (chair), Margery Battin, William Dailey, Daniel Griffin, Philip Hamilton, Stephen Politi, Jeffrey Robbins, and Alan Wrigley. Marilyn Kolb was initially a member of the Committee but had to step down due to other commitments. In addition to the appointed members, most meetings have been attended by Carl Valente, Hank Manz as Selectmen’s liaison, Tom Griffiths as School Committee liaison, and Maryann McCall-Taylor as liaison for the Planning Department. In its initial meetings, the Committee, guided by research previously conducted by Mr. Valente for the Mass. Municipal Management Association, identified four primary models through which towns in Massachusetts acquire needed legal services: a) in-house staff counsel; b) use of a large proportion of the time of a local practitioner; c) retention of a full-service firm that specializes in municipal work (The primary firm playing such a role in Massachusetts is Kopelman & Paige.); and d) retention of a multi- purpose law firm that services both municipal and private-sector clients. The committee identified nearby communities reasonably comparable to Lexington that utilize each of these models and scheduled site visits with one example of each model – Brookline for in-house counsel; Needham for sole practitioner; Burlington for municipal specialty firm (Kopelman & Paige); and Bedford for multi-purpose firm (Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane). Between four and eight of the committee members and liaisons attended each of these site visits, where we met with the town manager and a varying set of other participants from the visited town. None of the visits included the town’s moderator, but Mrs. Battin separately conferred with each of the moderators and reported back to the full committee. In addition, the Committee invited representatives of the two largest consumers of town legal services who were not represented on the