Friday morning, at 7:30 am at its headquarters in North Branch Park on Milltown Road in Bridgewater, the Somerset County Park Commission held a brief, sparsely attended meeting where it agreed to pursue three subsets of the same topic: legal representation for its problems and issues.The commission gave the go ahead for writing up two legal services contracts. The third item was – in the Commission’s own words – for a “List of Pre-qualified Attorneys for the ‘Pool’ of Legal Services.”
Translation: Thunder clouds are on the horizon, and there will be a lot more of your tax dollars spent by the Park Commission on attorneys.
A. The first proposed contract will be to hire legal representation concerning current investigations into the commission’s activities. The submission by a Chatham law firm specifies a $210 hourly rate for attorneys; $100 an hour for paralegals and law clerks; and, “separate billing … for any out-of-pocket disbursements.”
B. The second proposed contract – with a Morristown law firm – is to help the commission “to update and refine its policies and procedures.” The anticipated cost is $260 hourly for partners’ services; $250 hourly for associates; $100 hourly for paralegals; and, as with the first law firm, reimbursement for any out-of-pocket expenses.
C. The third item agreed to by the Park Commission was to establish a pool of six pre-qualified law firms from which the commission may draw. Two of those law firms are the ones mentioned above.
Out-of-pocket expenses are not trivial, as they could include legal research, investigation expenses, travel, expert fees, postage, messengers, photocopying, deposition transcripts, telephone charges, court costs, etc... Most of the hourly fees quoted above have been stated as blended rates.
Remember, all this is in addition to the cost of the Park Commission’s own in-house counsel who, up to now, has been advising it.
Whew!! It will take a Philadelphia lawyer to sort this out.
No comments:
Post a Comment