Since 1999, the City Attorney’s Office (“CAO”) has outsourced water related cases, issues, and matters to the law firm of Duane Morris, LLP with Partner Colin Pearce (“Duane Morris”) as the primary attorney.  These issues are highly specialized; as such, the CAO believes it is in the City’s best interest to continue this relationship for fiscal year 2023/2024.

City’s prior agreement with Duane Morris, titled Agreement No. 19-063, was executed in 2019 and remained in effect until the conclusion of FY 2022/2023.  Section 2.4 of that Agreement pertained to attorney compensation during Fiscal Year 2022/2023 and described a flat fee of One Million Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars and No Cents ($1,250,000).

The Agreement currently before the Council, is for a reduced flat fee of One Million Dollars and No Cents ($1,000,000) paid in monthly payments.  This amount represents a savings to the City of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars and No Cents ($250,000).

The savings attributed to this Agreement have enabled CAO to hire an additional attorney, the purpose of whom has been to aid City’s Water Resources Department with its legal needs.  This organizational change will produce several benefits for City, including the provision of more immediate legal services to assist Water in its day-to-day operations as well as freeing Duane Morris to concentrate almost exclusively on City’s water litigation needs.  Further, the hiring of an additional attorney enables City to cultivate a water law practitioner whose sole focus is the City, who will have access to the Kern River and its infrastructure, and who can act as City’s point of contact for the local water law community.  Each of these benefits are possible because of the savings this Agreement will produce.