AgdaPkt 2011-02-07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6.1E REPORT Page 1 To the Honorable Mayor and City Council From the City Manager February 7, 2011 SUBJECT Legal service agreements with the law firms of Bingham McCutchen, Burke Williams & Sorensen, and Downey Brand and associated budget. RECOMMENDATION Authorize, by motion, and ratify legal service agreements with the law firms of Bingham McCutchen, Burke Williams & Sorensen, and Downey Brand and authorize associated budget. BACKGROUND The City Attorney's Department provides legal representation and advice so that the City may lawfully attain its goals while minimizing risk to the City. This is accomplished by providing prompt and thoughtful legal analysis and work product in various areas of the law to support the City's goals and work efforts. The City Attorney's Department serves the City Council, the Planning Commission, various boards and commissions, the City Manager, and 12 City Departments. Due to the multiple subject matter specialties necessary to providing such a broad array of legal services, the City Attorney's Department supplements its expertise and capacity through the use of special counsel. In order to assure that the use of special counsel is necessary and strategic; the City Attorney evaluates the skill and expertise of a particular attorney and /or law firm and directs the particular work activity and work product. There are three projects which currently require specialized legal services — Saltworks, Stanford, and regulatory compliance issues associated with sewer. After a careful evaluation, the following firms are recommended for this work and in the budget amounts indicated. For lead special counsel for the City on the Saltworks Project, Cecily Talbert Barclay of the Bingham McCutchen law firm is recommended. Ms. Barclay has special expertise in land use, real estate, and local government law and has assisted numerous public agencies throughout California in all aspects of land use processing, including compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). She is also the author of Curtin's California Land Use and Planning. These services are developer reimbursed. By this motion, the City is also waiving any potential conflict that Bingham has with the City due to Bingham's representation of Stanford University, which is a project applicant. The City Council is requested to ratify a legal services agreement and to approve a budget in the amount of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000). 1