Way to Cut Legal Fees Studied : Monterey Park: Officials are debating a switch from the firm they paid $685,778 last year, much of it for a case that never went to trial.

MONTEREY PARK —  The City Council, overwhelmed by legal expenses that escalated since it hired the Los Angeles firm Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri, is considering switching law firms or hiring an in-house attorney.

Some council members, however, believe that they can retain the same firm but trim costs simply by avoiding frivolous litigation in the future.

Monday, the council decided to interview six candidates for the job, including Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri.

Some officials contend that the firm’s fees--$125 an hour, with a monthly cap of $7,500 for general municipal work--are excessive. Last year, Monterey Park paid Brown, Winfield $685,778, the largest chunk of it spent on a case that never went to trial: Casuda Canyon Corp. vs. Monterey Park. City Manager Mark Lewis is contesting the bill for that case.

The lawsuit was filed by the owners of Luminarias Restaurant, who claimed that the city, which owns the property the restaurant occupied on Ramona Boulevard, was responsible for damage to the building as a result of the October, 1987, Whittier Narrows earthquake.

The case was resolved this year when Monterey Park agreed to pay the owners $275,000. The city expects to be billed for about $300,000 in legal and expert-witness fees, and has received $212,000 in insurance company payments.

Disagreement over the fees “has caused a rift between the city attorney and the staff,” Lewis wrote in a July 11 memo to the City Council. “While it is difficult for us to question the amount of hours billed on individual bills, when we look at the larger issue of one case that did not (go to) trial costing over $300,000, we conclude that the overall costs are unacceptable.”

City Atty. Anthony Canzoneri, a partner in the firm, said that the fees in the Casuda Canyon lawsuit were not at all unreasonable and that lawyers had to prepare for trial with expert witnesses until the plaintiffs and city agreed to settle.

“It was a very complex . . . case,” he said Monday. “There were 47 insurance companies involved. We were being sued for $2.7 million. You can’t just sit back and wait for it to be settled.”

Canzoneri said the costs are not out of line with expenditures in other cities of similar size.

For instance, the Los Angeles firm Burke, Williams & Sorensen charges Baldwin Park $125 an hour for the legal services of City Atty. Robert Flandrick, on top of a monthly retainer fee of $1,600, said City Clerk Linda Gair. Alhambra pays the same firm a $1,200 monthly retainer fee, and $145 an hour for additional work by City Atty. Leland C. Dolley.

In Monterey Park, officials attribute the high costs to several factors: a flurry of lawsuits involving the city over the last several years, more aggressive redevelopment activity that required legal counsel, and some council members’ reluctance to settle cases.

“I don’t think they’ve done a bad job,” Councilwoman Betty Couch said Tuesday, adding that initially she was not in favor of interviewing other firms, “but that was a campaign issue, and that’s where it went.” She was referring to the April council election, when the legal bills became the focus of several candidates’ platforms.

This is not the first time a San Gabriel Valley city has reconsidered its contract with Brown, Winfield for cost reasons. Earlier this year, San Gabriel severed its relationship with the firm after it refused to charge a flat rate instead of $140 an hour, said City Administrator Robert Clute.

Now, San Gabriel pays $4,725 a month to Santa Monica-based Wallin, Kress, Reisman, Price & Dilkes, and $150 an hour for litigation work by City Atty. Robert Kress, Clute said. The city has saved a considerable amount, he said: It spent $110,349 during the 1988-89 fiscal year, when it was with Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri, compared to the $60,000 it expects to pay Wallin, Kress this year.

But Monterey Park, unlike San Gabriel, has a redevelopment agency and needs lawyers expert in redevelopment matters to oversee new projects that city officials hope will boost the tax base. Monterey Park’s per-capita sales tax revenue is among the lowest in the San Gabriel Valley.

For that reason, Councilman Samuel Kiang said he would like to retain Canzoneri’s firm for redevelopment work but hire an in-house city attorney for general municipal work. An in-house lawyer, he said, would monitor legal expenses above and beyond his annual salary and would have the incentive to control litigation.

“I have no problem with Canzoneri,” Kiang said. “They are very competent, except you need someone to monitor their billings. I audited all the bills. Every time we called, any time it had anything to do with the city of Monterey Park, they started charging.”

Couch and Mayor Judy Chu disagreed, saying an in-house lawyer would create more problems and would not necessarily save the city money.

“I couldn’t be more adamantly against it,” Couch said. “It’s a bureaucracy within a bureaucracy. We’d have to buy furniture, law libraries. Every time we start a department, it gets larger and larger. I don’t think that’s what Monterey Park needs.”

Candidates to be interviewed by the city include Gardena Assistant City Atty. Michael O’Toole and five law firms, including Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri.

The other four are: Barbosa & Vera in Monterey Park; Burke, Williams & Sorensen; Oliver, Stoever, Barr & Vose in Los Angeles, and Rutan & Tucker in Costa Mesa. The council scheduled the interviews for Aug. 7 and 8, and until then might consider additional applicants.

MONTEREY PARK LEGAL FEES 1983-84

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $73,935 $0 Henry S. Barbosa 416 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 8,341 5,313 Norm Lieberman 45,535 0 Total 1983-84 $128,229 $25,313

1984-85

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $72,819 $0 Henry S. Barbosa 22,654 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 12,828 144,526 Norm Lieberman 55,053 0 Total 1984-85 $163,355 $144,526

1985-86

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $87,886 $0 Henry S. Barbosa 54,030 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 22,482 59,622 Total 1985-86 $164,399 $59,622

1986-87

(Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri hired as Monterey Park city attorney for general municipal services)

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $59,270 $0 Henry S. Barbosa 19,439 0 Wilson, Kenna & Borys 2,402 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 274,699 69,135 Total 1986-87 $355,811 $69,135

1987-88

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $124,324 $0 Wilson, Kenna & Borys 1,286 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 640,771 110,637 Total 1987-88 $766,382 $110,637

1988-89

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $59,860 $0 Wilson, Kenna & Borys 293 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri 564,191 208,503 Total 1988-89 $624,344 $208,503

1989-90

FIRM CITY CRA Clausen & Campbell $61,930 $0 Wilson, Kenna & Borys 778 0 Brown, Winfield & Canzoneri* 425,738 260,039 Total 1989-90* $488,448 $260,039

*Represents all invoices paid through May, 1990

All figures have been rounded to the nearest dollar.