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STUDY OF THE CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF LAW The
Chicago Council of Lawyers and The Fund For Justice May, 1994 In 1982 the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Fund for Justice embarked on a study of the Chicago Department of Law ("Department"). Our study, released to the public in April, 1984, showed that James Montgomery, who became the corporation counsel with the election of Mayor Harold Washington, had inherited an office in disarray. While there were high quality lawyers present in the office, their work was eclipsed by patronage hiring and a lack of interoffice communication. Too many lawyers were paying more attention to their private practices than to representing the City of Chicago. There was no objective system of evaluating personnel and no systematic analysis of the types of legal matters in which the Department should be involved. Our study noted a lack of effective supervision and inadequate support staff. Paralegals were nonexistent. The office existed only to serve as counsel to the Mayor of the City of Chicago. A handful of attorneys were trying to provide representation to the City on important matters. Less critical matters were being ignored and, at best, the quality of the legal work was mediocre. One consequence of the lack of proper management of the Department was a budget for outside counsel of more than two million dollars. The Chicago Department of Law was a loosely knit group of attorneys seeking to prevent legal disasters. They were often unsuccessful. When we released our 1984 report we said that a modern city law office should be part of a city's fiscal as well as legal management; it must be able to defend the City in court action, bring suits on its behalf, and enforce its laws through vigorous prosecution. We also said that the Department must be able to counsel city government and be involved in the legislative process so that problems do not arise or are reduced in scope. We argued in 1984 that a good law department will save Chicago millions of dollars each year. Unscrupulous contractors, for example, will be penalized for their actions. Good legal defense will minimize what the City must pay as a result of legal action. We argued that providing resources to the Department is a good investment for the future. We said that the Department must change its basic structure and thrust so that it would move toward becoming an efficient and effective public law firm that protects Chicago's interests in both the short and long terms. And, in so doing, it should aim toward being perceived as competent, vigorous, and exemplary by the judiciary, the bar, and the public. We offered 33 specific recommendations that suggested ideas that, if implemented, would help create an exemplary law office by enhancing the existing strengths and eliminating the weaknesses. We said that Chicago could have an exemplary law office but only if all City officials, including the Mayor and the City Council, wanted to invest the requisite time and money. When we began our original study of the Department, the Byrne administration had refused all cooperation with our work. However, when our study began officially in February of 1983, the Washington administration offered its cooperation and in April, 1984 Corporation Counsel James Montgomery attended the press conference at which the report was released publicly. He noted the accuracy of the report and pledged that it would be utilized as he worked with the Mayor to rebuild the Department. In November, 1992, the Council and the Fund began a reexamination of the Department to assess the extent to which this important public law office has moved toward becoming the exemplary model that Chicago deserves. An overarching goal is to have a professional municipal law office that protects the interests of the City legally and financially. A municipal law office that does its job well will, as a consequence, generate revenue for the City - another reason for City government to invest time and money in developing and maintaining a high quality law department. We said in the 1984 Final Report that:
This 1994 report is the culmination of our study of the Department which was conducted between November, 1992 and March, 1994, including comparisons with past studies of the Department. We utilized personal interviews, telephone interviews, and mail questionnaire surveys. We received the cooperation of the Department. In reviewing the results of our work, we found a dramatic improvement in the quality of representation being provided to the City of Chicago over the past decade. The majority of our 1984 recommendations have been implemented and the Department has implemented other reforms. The Department has been transformed from the disgrace it was prior to 1983 to a public law office that is among the best municipal law offices in the country. The Department's lawyers are generally professional and conscientious. Most of the lawyers and judges who we contacted told us that the Department usually does top quality work -- and that it can serve as a model for other public law offices. The Department, however, needs to continue to improve its services and to maintain the gains that it has made. This presents a considerable challenge. There continue to be reports of inconsistent quality of lawyering. Some commentators report that City agencies and departments are not being informed adequately about the legal actions in which they are involved. Other sources tell us that the Department needs more and better support staff. But, in general, there has been over the past ten years an impressive transformation. This transformation has taken place because Corporation Counsels were appointed for the purpose of creating an exemplary public law office. They tapped the public interest law sector and the private legal sector for talented lawyers who brought their expertise to the Department and their ability to impart their expertise to other lawyers. The Department has focused on the budgeting process for increases in resources and implemented some creative approaches to providing legal services to the City. Our objective in this report is to document the transformation process - to analyze and discuss the steps taken that have improved the Department. Our objective is to also report on the weaknesses of the Department that still exist and to offer additional recommendations for the continued improvement of the Department. 1994 Recommendations The following are our 1994 recommendations: A. The number of paralegals and administrative support staff should be increased. Use of paralegals makes the use of attorney time more effective and efficient. While the Department now utilizes the services of paralegals, we recommend that the Department hire additional paralegals using a merit-based hiring process. We also recommend that additional clerical support staff be hired, using a merit-based hiring process. The Department operates with a crushing caseload. While we note with approval that there are more personal computers being allocated to individual attorneys in the Department, the office needs additional support staff to help maintain the increasing workload. Paralegals and administrative support staff can allow the lawyers to do more lawyering and less caseload management functions.
B. The Torts Division Would Benefit From Less Separation of the Motions and Trial Functions. Cases Need to be More Closely Monitored From Beginning to End. Utilizing a separate motions disposition group, as the Department now does, can prevent cases from being settled early on. In addition, our sources tell us that the Division would benefit from closer monitoring in light of the large case load. C. The Department of Law Should Continue to Focus on Providing Supervision. In 1983, one of the more frequent complaints we heard through our personal interviews and surveys was that inexperienced Department attorneys did not seem to be adequately supervised. Our 1993 interviews and surveys indicate that, in general, the level of supervision provided by the Department has improved substantially. Yet there are complaints that the quality of lawyering provided by the Department is inconsistent. In an office that relies upon a corps of relatively inexperienced attorneys, the amount and quality of supervision continues to be a critical factor. We believe that the quality of supervision being provided to staff attorneys by the Division Chiefs should be an important variable used when evaluating Division Chiefs. It is important that not only the expertise of Division Chiefs and Deputies be tapped, but that their ability to supervise be considered an important skill as well. The expertise possessed by the Division Chiefs and Deputies must be made available to the Assistant Corporation Counsels. The Department should continue to focus on serving the needs of its clients. The Department has improved substantially over the past decade in terms of serving the needs of City departments and agencies. The Department today more closely utilizes the model of lawyer/client in dealing with departments and agencies. But the Department, according to many of our sources, needs to more closely monitor legal activities and inform its clients about the progress of their cases. D. The Department of Law should continue its current practice of maximizing promotion opportunities. The Department has tapped both its own ranks and private sector law firms and public law offices to fill supervisory positions. To continue to attract high quality attorneys and to assure that the best attorneys are utilized effectively, the Department should continue its current practice of first considering in-house attorneys to fill higher paid supervisory positions. In an office the size of the Chicago Department of Law, there is room for attorneys in supervisory, managerial type positions who are from private law firms, public law offices, and from within the ranks of the Department itself. The Department should seek to increase the number of Senior Assistant Corporation Counsel positions. These positions offer additional compensation and supervisory responsibilities to attorneys whose job performance warrants a promotion. The Department will benefit from 1) the increased opportunities to promote worthy attorneys and from 2) the additional supervision that Senior Assistant Corporation Counsels provide to Assistant Corporation Counsels. E. The Department of Law should continue to provide an opportunity for inter-divisional transfers. The opportunity for inter-divisional transfers that has been made available by the Department is welcome. But we recommend that inter-divisional transfers be used more systematically as (1) a means to recruit attorneys to the ability to be exposed to a variety of areas of law; and (2) a means to provide on the job training - e.g., from less complex to a more complex practice of law. F. More training should be provided to the attorneys. Over the past decade, the Department of Law has attracted attorneys with extensive expertise. On the job training is an important part of utilizing that expertise in order to train lower level staff attorneys. But we recommend that there be additional training programs implemented so that this expertise assembled by the Department can be even better relayed to the staff attorneys. This is particularly important for newly hired, less experienced attorneys. We applaud the initiation of the trial advocacy training program implemented by the Department. We applaud the addition of a "Litigation Training Committee" which is establishing monthly in-house training programs. We also believe that additional training is necessary. In addition to increased in-house training, we recommend that the Department continue to tap Chicago area law firms for training materials and mentoring -- including personal injury law firms to provide mentoring for attorneys in the Torts Division. G. The Department should continue its practice of minimizing and monitoring private referrals. In 1984 we noted that a major subject of media attack on the Chicago Law Department had to do with referring cases to outside counsel. This practice has been reduced substantially. In addition, the Department today, unlike ten years ago, has collected and made available details associated with each referral. In addition, when outside counsel is used, an assistant corporation counsel is assigned to work with the outside counsel as part of the arrangement. We recommend that these procedures be continued and that the number of referrals continue to be minimized. When there is a private referral, however, we urge that the Department consider the same sort of billing caps utilized by the New York City Department of Law. H. An advisory committee should be created. We recommend that an advisory committee be established to work with the administration of the Department in considering creative ways to better utilize the services of the Department. This advisory committee would be comprised of senior level representatives of the private bar and the public interest sector, government sector and academia. It would assist the Department in gathering information about programs, policies and procedures used in large city municipal law offices nationwide. An advisory committee would help the Department develop a network of contacts to assist in the budgeting process. It could also help to improve the prestige of the Department which, in turn, would help the Department attract to its ranks more experienced lawyers. I. The Department should issue an annual report discussing the accomplishments of the Department of Law and providing accurate statistics. The Department should be proud of the accomplishments it has made over the past decade. It has, however, for too long operated without adequate public exposure. To increase its accountability, we recommend that Department issue an annual report which will highlight each Division of the Department and will include such statistics as numbers of cases brought by the Department, the number and cost of cases referred to private counsel and other budgetary data. There are many who say that improved quality of representation provided by the Department over the past decade has yielded a vast increase in monetary resources for the City. This needs to be documented. There is not only financial gain when the Department represents the City as plaintiff in seeking to right a wrong. There is also great financial gain when high quality defense work decreases the amount of money that the City must pay as part of a judgment. These statistics need to be analyzed and presented in an annual report so that not only will the public know what it is getting for its dollar, but the City Council will know what it is getting for its dollar when it comes to budgetary considerations. Public law offices rely upon the political process for their budgets. The Department must do everything that it can to present its case: that the City will get back more than it provides if there is an adequate investment in the Department of Law. As part of the gathering, analysis and presentation of financial statistics, we believe that the lawyers should be required to keep timesheets to the extent necessary to collect the necessary statistics. J. The Department of Law should cooperate with the City of Chicago in establishing a risk management program. As we discussed in our 1984 report, other cities, in responding to large jury verdicts and increasing litigation, have attempted to reduce the risk by seeking to identify and eliminate potential sources of conflict. We recommend that such a program be developed between the Department and the City of Chicago. CONCLUSION We issue our report to praise the Department for its accomplishments and we offer our recommendations in the spirit of constructive criticism so that the Department will not only maintain its current level of operation but will be able to improve upon it as well.
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