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Longtime city solicitor loses bid to keep city's legal biz
By Theresa McManus
Record Reporter
The City of New Westminster has awarded a legal services contract to Lidstone, Young and Anderson but the financial details aren't quite clear.
The city has awarded a five-year contract to Lidstone, Young and Anderson, a well-known law firm that specializes in municipal legal services. The announcement followed a request for proposals issued by the city in October.
"It's standard practice now for us to do RFPs for all of our contract services," said city administrator Paul Daminato. "We have been doing it for a few years."
Michael McAllister of Murdy and McAllister Barristers and Solicitor has been the city's primary lawyer for 18 years.
"I just want to say that Michael's firm has provided excellent service to the city and excellent advice to the city," Daminato said. "It is something that is really appreciated. We are looking forward to working with a new firm and seeing what they can offer."
Daminato said the city was "very happy" with the services provided, but it's good business practice to ensure the city is getting the best value for its money.
"It will be substantially less," said Mayor Wayne Wright about the legal costs with the new firm. "We should be able to save a substantial amount of money."
Daminato said he couldn't reveal the hourly rates submitted by the various firms. He couldn't recall the percentage differences between the submissions.
Daminato said the city's legal fees can vary from year to year, depending on the amount of legal work to be done. He said the legal services have cost the city about $400,000 annually for the past few years.
"In this kind of a proposal, it is not a bid per se," he said, when asked if the low bidder won the contract. "We are not asking for a finite piece of work to be done. You review the rates, you review the municipalities that use their services - their average costs."
Rates also vary within firms, said Daminato, as different lawyers have different billing rates.
"It depends on which lawyer you choose," he said. "It is very difficult to compare that way."
Daminato said the committee that made a recommendation to council did so after making comparisons with legal fees of other municipalities.
"I am aware that the hourly rate in our firm's bid was substantially lower than any of the other bids. Despite this and the more than 18 years of service to the city, it is clear that the city wants to move in a different direction. I respect the city's right to make that decision," McAllister said. "It has been an honour to have worked for the city. I feel very privileged to have been able to work with so many professional, dedicated people over the past 18 years."
The city's request for proposals stated that it was looking for "creative responses" from the marketplace, in an attempt to ensure the city engages the most appropriate legal services for changing environments and strategic challenges faced by municipal governments.
"As the city desires to obtain best value for money, it is the intent of this RFP to support the city operations with the most appropriate high quality legal services for the least cost," said the document. "The city intends to appoint a legal firm to provide the majority of its required municipal legal services. This is not an exclusive relationship as the city uses other firms for human resources and labour relations matters. ..."
A six-member committee consisting of staff and Coun. Bill Harper reviewed and evaluated the submissions and interviewed representatives of four firms.
"We were looking obviously at their background and experience, primarily in municipal law," Daminato said. "We were looking at examples of creativity - creativity in terms of legal cases and the work they have done."
Daminato said the committee also considered the firms' ability to work with staff and educate them in terms of legal services, with the goal of making staff more adept at working within the legal system. Also considered were "relationship" services, such as the ability to provide a backup solicitor and 24-hour advice, and cost.
"They were relatively similar," Daminato said about the firms' hourly rates. "The rates vary depending on which lawyer you use. Some firms have the ability to get legal work done by various lawyers in the firm."
Daminato said Lidstone, Young and Anderson is a larger firm with more lawyers, so it has a few more services than smaller firms, such as staff education and seminars.
"This firm has been able to initiate a couple of legislative changes to assist municipalities," he added. "Down the road that might be helpful."
New Westminster city council approved a new legal services contract with Lidstone, Young and Anderson at a Jan. 15 in camera meeting, so the details of the contract and the vote aren't being made public.
"Murdy and McAllister has served us very, very well. We have broken trail in numerous bylaws in protection for our residents - panhandling, nuisance, no go zones, the shutting down of crack houses," said Coun. Bob Osterman. "They have helped us craft some really good bylaws. They have done superior work on the casino."
New Westminster was the first community in British Columbia to negotiate a destination casino agreement.
"Our lawyer has always been in the public eye. For somebody who doesn't live here, he attends events," Osterman said. "He is more than a lawyer, he is a friend."
Osterman said the city has a certain amount of control regarding the cost of its annual legal expenses. If council requires "hand-holding" at every meeting by the city solicitor, costs will be in the stratosphere, he said, but if the city does its research and doesn't make rash decisions then the legal costs can be reduced.
Coun. Betty McIntosh said most members of city council are familiar with the work of Lidstone, Young and Anderson from hearing its lawyers speak at conventions and from its work in drafting the Community Charter.
"That was part of the mystery. There wasn't really concrete numbers when it was first discussed," said McIntosh, when asked about the financial impact of the new contract. "With legal services, it is dependent on the amount of work to be done. One month you might have few issues and the next month you might have a lot."
While she has no issues with the new firm, McIntosh said she's "not delighted" with the decision. She said Murdy and McAllister has been very responsive to the city's need to develop bylaws relating to a variety of social issues, including some bylaws that didn't exist elsewhere in the province.
"We have had some really good legal services," McIntosh said. "We have had some very creative bylaws for nuisance behaviors. I have felt that Michael, especially as our main contact, was extremely approachable."
With at least 10 staff members having left the development services department in the past year-and-a-half, McIntosh feels the city benefited from the "corporate memory" that McAllister contributed to the city.
"There is an awful lot of new staff," she said. "That is why I wasn't totally certain this is the time to do it."
Coun. Lorrie Williams said the city issued the request for proposals because that's the normal process, not because of dissatisfaction by the services that have been provided.
"Michael has a corporate memory. I am sorry to see that go. He has served the city well," she said. "People are always leaving, we maybe don't realize it."
Williams is pleased with some of the new people who are coming to work for the City of New Westminster.
"Corporate memory has to be documented. If you want memory, you can harken back and find documents. I don't know if you should make decisions on whether we should keep him or her around because they have corporate memory," she said. "I think the city will do just fine. We are getting some brilliant new faces."
Coun. Bill Harper thinks it was a wise decision to send legal services out to tenders as it hadn't been done in a long time.
"It's a very good thing," he said about the process. "What you are looking at is the quality of service and the cost of service and what different law firms can bring to the city."
Harper said the issue is about more than the rate charged per hour by various law firms, as some firms bring a variety of expertise with them.
"Lidstone, Young and Anderson came in very high," he said of the rating system. "They have a huge amount of experience. They have over 100 cities and municipalities in British Columbia that they have as clients. Don Lidstone was very instrumental in drafting of the Community Charter, which is now the benchmark for all the work being done in B.C. in cities and municipalities. They brought a huge chunk in understanding of municipal laws and where laws are going."
Harper said the City of New Westminster has been "well served" by Murdy and McAllister, but Lidstone Young and Anderson came out "on top" of the process.
"At the end of the day, we felt we wanted the best possible legal advice for the dollar," he said. "Lidstone ranked Number 1."
According to Harper, cost and low bid isn't the city's only consideration when selecting a lawyer.
"Sometimes legal firms, if they have the experience, can do things a lot quicker," he said. "If you have that body of knowledge in your office, you don't have to go find it somewhere else."
published on 01/20/2007
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