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Item No: 9K <br />Meeting Date: June 23, 2003 <br />Type of Business: Council Business <br />City of Mounds View Staff Report <br />To: Honorable Mayor and City Council <br />From: James Ericson, Acting City Administrator <br />Item Title/Subject: Review of Legal Services Interviews <br /> <br />Introduction: <br /> <br />You may recall that thirteen firms responded to the City’s request for legal services <br />proposals, ten of which submitted proposals to provide the City with civil representation. Two <br />firms (Frank Madden & Associates and Krass Monroe) offered to provide only a subset of <br />services and were not considered. Three of the ten forms also offered to provide the City <br />with prosecution services while a fourth firm, Hughes & Costello, offered only to provide <br />prosecution services. At the June 2, 2003 City Council worksession, six firms were chosen <br />for interview from the ten firms having submitted civil representation proposals. <br /> <br />Discussion: <br /> <br />On Thursday, June 12, 2003, Greg Lee, Mike Sommer, Charlie Hansen and I interviewed the <br />following six law firms that were identified from the June 2, 2003 worksession. <br /> <br />Firm Retainer Amount Depth of Firm Response Depth <br />Kelly & Fawcett $2,800 Low (7) Adequate <br />Winthrop & Weinstine $2,900 High (70) Adequate <br />Barna, Guzy & Steffen $3,000 High (26) High <br />Kennedy & Graven $3,000 High (26) High <br />Halleland Lewis Nilan $4,000 High (50) High <br />Campbell & Knutson $4,000 Medium (10) High <br /> <br />The firms were asked the same questions (see attached list of questions) and were ranked <br />based upon their responses, their presentation, their experience in specific identified areas <br />and also on less tangible aspects such as motivation, professionalism and attitude. <br /> <br />At the end of the day, the interview panel reviewed the six firms and ranked them as <br />indicated above. Two firms—Winthrop & Weinstine and Campbell & Knutson—were <br />eliminated from consideration due to a relative lack of experience (Winthrop) and a general <br />lack of motivation in their presentation (Campbell). That left four firms for consideration. Not <br />surprisingly, the interview panel was split on the remaining firms. Kelly & Fawcett was <br />identified as the top firm by two of the interviewers with Barna Guzy chosen by the other two <br />interviewers. The full rankings are as follows: