Council, Lawyer Trade Barbs Over Legal Fees : Dispute: Councilman Jeff Kramer implicates poor management by City Atty. Michael Jenkins. But Jenkins says the cause is “out of control” litigation.

The Malibu City Council has paid its final legal bill for the year that ended in June, but only after warning City Atty. Michael Jenkins that things have to change: July’s bill, for example, came in “way, way too high.”

Councilman Jeff Kramer, a lawyer, wrote Jenkins on Sept. 23 that the bill for July, totaling $72,540, was “indicative of little management or discipline by your firm with regard to legal expense.”

Jenkins said his firm will be responding “at some length” to questions raised in Kramer’s letter. But a large part of the problem, he said in a memo to the council last month, is that litigation is “truly out of control” and that some matters are being litigated against his advice.

The city’s 1992-93 budget allocates $12,000 per month for general legal services and $15,000 per month for litigation expenses. For the 15-month period ending June 30, however, Jenkins’ firm, Richards, Watson & Gershon of Los Angeles, billed the city more than $614,000--an average of more than $40,000 a month.

The firm and the city settled up last month for fiscal 1991-92 after extensive negotiations. Jenkins’ agreement with the city called for his firm to be paid $380,000 for 1991-92, with negotiation on any expenses beyond that.

The bill submitted for the year, however, was $166,000 over the limit, not including $86,400 over budget for projects the city had authorized. Jenkins proposed in September that his firm be paid half the over-budget amount, or $83,000.

Jenkins wrote: “We had given serious consideration to proposing that the remaining unpaid fees for litigation matters not be split in half, because the litigation is truly out of control especially in those instances where the council has acted contrary to our advice.

“In the end, I have persuaded my partners that we should show our continuing good faith and cooperation” by accepting “the 50% discount,” Jenkins wrote.

Jenkins also said his firm “met the city’s nearly insatiable hunger for new ordinances.”

Kramer, a member of the council subcommittee that deals with contract services, responded in a letter that the 50% payment Jenkins mentioned is “unfair and misleading” and is actually 89.5%, or an 11% discount, over the entire fiscal year.

In his more sharply worded letter of Sept. 23, Kramer also questioned document-copying charges of $817, messenger charges totaling $886--including eight messengers on July 31--and research fees of $1,236 in July.

Calling the July expenses “way, way too high,” Kramer said, “I view this as one of our key issues to deal with this year.”

Jenkins said he will respond to the specific questions and said the messenger fees included all of July, not just July 31.

“July 31 is the billing date, not the messenger date,” Jenkins said, adding that the charges were for “different days, different places and different reasons.”

Kramer said the city is in a position to bargain hard with Jenkins’ firm because “lawyers are in a recession like other businesses.”

“We are the ones who ask for legal services, and we need to establish priorities,” Kramer said. “We have to get a list of current matters the attorney is working on, and determine which ones need to be done, which can be done later and which are essential.”