New Canaan’s highest elected official said Wednesday that the town will issue a request for proposals for legal services.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson said that she hopes the firm that long has handled the town’s legal services, Westport-based Berchem Moses PC, will respond to the RFP.
“It’s more of a philosophy that we’ve had them for two cycles of first selectmen, and it’s just good practice to go out” to bid, Carlson said during a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
The town has not issued an RFP for legal services since 2012—a block of time that encompasses the entire three-term tenure of the immediate former first selectman, Kevin Moynihan, a retired lawyer who routinely exceeded the legal budget.
For example, in fiscal year 2021, the town spent $404,788.01 in legal fees to Berchem Moses against a budget of $300,000. The following fiscal year the town spent $395,947.42, and $420,413.78 in fiscal year 2023. Through the first half of the current fiscal year, the town has already spent $240,221.12 in legal fees with the firm.
Selectman Amy Murphy Carroll said during the meeting, “A lot of these costs were incurred before any of us were sitting here, right? And they were triggered by actions that did not affect us.”
Appearing to refer to $22,375 spent last fiscal year on the town’s Memorandum of Understanding with New Canaan Library (and $36,616.50 the prior fiscal year), Murphy Carroll added, “We should be able to work collectively with our partners, and not have to get into legal decisions.”
The town has also spent tens of thousands of dollars on FOI- and land use-related legal matters that New Canaan ended up losing.
Murphy Carroll described the current town attorney’s hourly rate ($235) as “aggressive.” The town also pays a monthly retainer of $8,500.
Carlson said that she would be thoughtful about tapping the expertise of the town attorney’s firm.
“Not every decision needs a legal opinion,” she said. “Lots of decisions do, but if I’m signing a Memorandum of Understanding that’s just a renewal of an existing memorandum with no word changes, I don’t really need to run it by legal.”
Selectman Steve Karl said, “To be fair to Berchem Moses, they’ve done a great job, [Town Attorney] Ira [Bloom] and their whole team.”
Murphy Carroll said that the town’s decision to put legal services out for bid doesn’t indicate “a lack of trust.”
Carlson said, “Absolutely.”
I agree that’s it’s a good idea to periodically issue an RFP for law firms to handle the Town’s legal work, but I don’t think we should be short-sighted about employing lawyers. It is extremely difficult to budget for legal services, because much of the work is defensive in nature, ie., protecting the Town’s
interests when, for example, a discharged policeman sues the Town for racial discrimination, or a developer sues the Town for wrongfully turning down an affordable housing project. And even though an MOU may appear to be a simple matter of copying the last version, the law and/or the factual situation may have changed in the interim, so that it would be prudent to have the new one reviewed by lawyers. The matters that will need legal representation often can’t be known in January, so when the actual legal expenses run over the “budget,” it should not be cause for handwringing. If the law firm can substantiate it’s fees by hours and expenses spent on a matter, Town officials might be better served by looking at the matters that they allow to reach dispute.
Sorry Amy. Your comment re legal fees with respect to New Canaan Library misses the mark. Given the size of the Town’s commitment and the various issues/potential issues that were present, it was more than prudent to involve counsel. That said, the current RFP also makes sense for reasons noted elsewhere in the article.
Amy isn’t wrong, and I don’t see where she’s advising against seeking any counsel from the town attorney (or even spending taxpayer money beyond their $8,500 monthly retainer). I hear her questioning the need to spend so much to wrangle with a trustworthy community partner. And I don’t know what you mean by “issues” (please don’t say preservation, that thing is a monument to stupidity and poor taste) but whatever they were supposed to be never panned out for the people who invented (“various issues”) or imagined (“potential issues”) them—just visit the library.
Sorry, Michael. That’s the implication of the paragraph as written.
As to preservation, I happen to agree with your comment. At the same time, issues include the wrangling over preservation and town funding.
Thanks Peter. We can agree to disagree on this one. I appreciate your perspective.
This brings up the matter of proper town budgeting – believe I commented to the BoS or T/C last year budget season why are you decreasing the legal budget when you know all the issues going on and previous years expenses? We now have a year of news articles talking about exceeding legal budgets. It is budget season now – the town needs to look at its track record of expenses – look at what is in front of it – and make good estimates going forward to get the budget right. Do we expect fewer legal expenses in the future than we had the last 3 years – if so budget $300k again if not budget $400k or more.