Manhattan Beach May Sever Ties With Law Firm

Faced with a consultant’s report that says there is money to be saved, the Manhattan Beach City Council on Tuesday will discuss hiring a full-time staff attorney and ending its relationship with private lawyer Carl Newton, who has served as city attorney for 25 years.

“It’s not a personal thing,” City Manager Bill Smith said. “My recommendation is based on the fact that cities are being forced to look at every nook and cranny to (produce) revenue reductions.”

Smith is recommending that Newton, a private attorney working part-time for the city, be terminated because the report by consultant Ralph Andersen Associates of Sacramento says the city could save as much as $150,000 a year by using an in-house attorney.

Newton, on the other hand, plans to argue that the report is flawed, that it underestimates the cost of a staff attorney and fails to take into account the breadth and depth of his firm’s legal expertise.

“During the entire period where I’ve handled litigation,” Newton said of his tenure in Manhattan Beach, “I have never lost a case, including cases that have gone to the California Supreme Court.”

Newton is a senior partner at the Los Angeles firm of Burke, Williams and Sorenson, which serves more than a dozen Southland cities including Lomita and El Segundo in the South Bay. Working with a junior associate, he performs a wide range of legal services that this year are expected to cost the city about $350,000.

Citing the consultant’s findings, Smith said the firm’s bills to the city were less than half that five years ago. He estimated that it would cost the city $170,000 to $200,000 a year if it hired a full-time staff attorney.

Newton, however, questions whether a staff attorney could provide the city with legal services comparable to those offered by his firm.

“They’re talking about hiring a city attorney for $100,000,” Newton said. “That has to be an attorney of relatively low-level experience.”

Newton said that in his work for the city, he can call on 30 to 50 lawyers in the firm who are experts on everything from labor law and eminent domain to tax law and environmental law.

“You can’t be a Jack-of-all-trades in that many fields and be effective,” Newton said.

Over the last 20 years, Newton said, municipal law has become much more complex given legislative changes and the public’s use of the initiative and referendum method to affect such areas as land use and taxation.

In making its decision, the council will likely have a hard time estimating how much the city ought to be spending on legal services.

The city may save some money by hiring a staff attorney for day-to-day legal affairs, for example, but that does not take into account the cost of big cases farmed out to private firms besides Newton’s company--something that will continue whether Newton stays or goes, Smith concedes.

An example is the city’s legal battle over 23 acres of railroad right-of-way, a dispute that has cost the city more than $1 million in legal fees. Newton’s firm is not handling that case.

Council members are not saying how they plan to vote on the attorney question. None expected the issue to be resolved on Tuesday.

Discussing what they will weigh in making their decision, some council members expressed concern over rising legal costs, while others pointed to policy questions, such as whether an in-house attorney would be as independent as one who works on contract.

A full-time staff attorney, said Councilman Steve Barnes, would “be subject to tremendous political pressure by the council.”

But Councilwoman Connie Sieber pointed out that cities are hard-pressed financially and must seek new ways to save money.

“We’re going to have to look at whether we can get (legal) services at a reduced rate or at least more in-house time,” she said.