Agenda Packets - 2003/06/02 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No: 6 Meeting Date: June 2, 2003 Type of Business: Worksession City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Acting City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Review of Legal Services Responses to RFP Introduction: I have concluded my review and assessment of the City Attorney proposals and would like to share with you my findings and to identify those firms considered to be candidates for interview. While all of you have had the responses for a few weeks, you may not have reviewed the proposals to the extent and depth that I did, and for that reason I have provided you with some summary tables and documentation which I used to help identify those firms to interview. Summary: Thirteen firms responded to the RFP, ten of which submitted proposals to provide the City with civil representation. Two firms (Frank Madden & Associates and Krass Monroe) offered to provide only a subset of services and were not considered. Three of the ten forms also offered to provide the City with prosecution services while a fourth firm, Hughes & Costello, offered only to provide prosecution services. Selection Criteria: My assessment of the firms was based on a number of factors, such as experience, firm depth, cost of services and retainer amount. As you can see from the table entitled “Services Covered under Retainer Agreement” most of the firms are similar in what is covered under the retainer. Some include more than others, however most indicate that general legal issues are covered while financing, litigation and other defense or representation would be outside the scope of the retainer. Because the proposed services covered under the retainer were similar, I ranked firms in order of the cost of the annual retainer, followed by depth of firm and then the overall presentation of their proposal. Through this ranking effort, I have identified four firms to interview—Kelly & Fawcett, Winthrop & Weinstine, Barna Guzy & Steffen, and Halleland Lewis Nilan Sipkins & Johnson. Interviews: Assuming the Council raises no objections, I would like to schedule interviews with the firms either later this week or early in the following week. Greg Lee, Mike Sommer, Charlie Hansen and I will make up the interview panel. If a council member would like to take part in the interviews, either as a passive observer or an active participant, simply let me know. I imagine that the interviews could be accomplished in a single day with a block of time in the morning and a block in the afternoon.