Really interesting read tonight about Saint Louis Public Schools and the longtime legal counsel they employed. You can read the full article here, but I wanted to pull out some of the more interesting quotes:
In the last four years alone, records show that the St. Louis Public
Schools have spent almost $11 million on legal services, a figure that
works out, on average, to $75 per student a year. Most of that went to
Brostron and his law firm. That per-student average is twice, or even 10 times, what legal fees cost taxpayers in school districts across the country.
So is it twice or 10 times? That is a pretty big difference. If anyone out there has solid numbers of what we are paying per child in legal fees, please comment and direct me to them.
As in many urban districts, the lawyers became the institutional memory
in a district that chewed up board members and administrators every
year, leaders and experts said.But that also caused controversy.
"The most powerful person sitting at the table is legal counsel," said
Robert Archibald, president of the Missouri Historical Society and a
former board member. "And that's probably not appropriate. No, not
probably — that's not appropriate."
This certainly raises an interesting question/issue about the institutional memory of school district lawyers. Part of me thinks keeping the institutional record is sort of what we pay them to do ... but the question of appropriateness is a legitimate one given they are not publically elected nor directly overseen by a school board. Which brings us to how Saint Louis Public Schools intend to address this issue...
Now Brostron's time is done. With little fanfare, the Special
Administrative Board overseeing the district replaced Lashly & Baer
last week with an in-house general counsel who will be paid a flat fee
of $100,000 a year to dispense day-to-day legal advice.
Again, we see another district moving to in-house counsel (this seems to be a rapidly developing phenomena and one worthy of some research to determine just how quickly schools across the country are moving to in-house counsels).
In December, even as the elected School Board bickered over the
prospect of state intervention, an advisory committee reviewed the
district's checkbook.The district, it said, had overspent by $96 million over five years and was at that point $30 million in the hole.
Legal fees can hardly be blamed for the deficit. Last year, Lashly
& Baer's bills didn't even represent 1 percent of the district's
$350 million budget.But they didn't help.
In three of the last four years, the district has blown its legal
services budget by several thousand dollars. Last year, the district
set aside $1.8 million for lawyers. It spent $2.8 million on legal fees.At the same time, the district bought just $236,000 worth of library books.
That is never good publicity. I do wonder, however, about a couple of things. First, even at $250/hour, it takes a heck of a lot of hours to total $2.8 million. Now that the city schools have dropped their law firm, do they really expect 1 person being paid $100,000 can accomplish the same amount of work? Second, the 1% of the $350 million dollar budget that was going to lawyers seems like a small percentage. But, I would wonder how much of that $350 million was going to administrators? If we did a better job of training administrators to deal with the day to day legal issues, we could save significantly on legal costs as much of the $2.8 million was generated dealing with administrator phone calls...
Sullivan hopes having a lawyer in-house will save the schools money.
Lashly & Baer billing statements show that district leaders called
the firm time and again for advice on meeting agendas, hiring
practices, filing paperwork, board officer elections and the effects of
pending legislation.When board members wanted advice, they called the firm. When board
business became contentious, members called Brostron. And if they just
wanted to sideline board business for awhile, they could refer it to
Lashly & Baer.For instance, in the winter of 2006, then-board president Veronica
O'Brien said, the elected school board was so deeply divided that she
contacted Brostron on nearly every issue."I talk to him all the time, 24 hours a day," O'Brien said then. "I use him for everything."
Over a three-day period in November, her name appears six times on the
billing statements, connected to more than $6,500 in charges, including
one listing for "multiple telephone conferences with Ms. O'Brien
regarding records."
Very interesting stuff there. Raises a lot of questions about schools and their lawyers that need further investigation.
Here is a link to Saint Louis Public Schools and their former Legal Counsel, Lashly and Baer.