NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — The Benton County Quorum Court agreed last week to settle a lawsuit and pay $43,350 to Lance Ashmore, a property owner who had claimed that the county had caused flood damage to his home when it did paving work on Gamble Road.
The Quorum Court was convinced to settle by Chris Griffin, the outside lawyer hired to represent the county. Griffin said that fighting the lawsuit likely would have cost just as much as settling, and the county might have ended up paying even more depending on the outcome of a jury trial.
If Benton County had a fulltime attorney on staff, however, the Quorum Court might have decided differently, because fighting the lawsuit would not have been nearly as costly.
This raises the obvious question of whether the county should continue to rely on a part-time lawyer, who bills the county for work as it’s done, or go back to having a full-time attorney on staff, as was the situation before Dave Bisbee became county judge.
In 2007 and 2008, Benton County spent a combined $487,067 - an average of $243,533 per year - on a fulltime attorney, a full-time paralegal assistant and some part-time law clerks. In 2009, when the county switched to a part-time attorney, it spent $105,075 for legal work.
On the surface, those numbers favor sticking with the part-time attorney.
But having a good in-house attorney is somewhat like an insurance policy. That person can potentially spot problems before they blow up into expensive lawsuits.
And, county officials are not going to hesitate to take advantage of that attorney’s expertise.
The main reason that Bisbee got into trouble last year - and ultimately lost the voters’ confidence - was because of the way his administration handled bidding procedures. Would the county have made the mistakes it did if an in-house attorney with government experience had been there to identify potential pitfalls? Maybe.
A full-time attorney, presuming that person was prohibited from doing any work on the side, could dedicate all of his or her attention to county matters.
And when the county faces a lawsuit such as the one brought by Ashmore, the Quorum Court would be in a better position to fight it, because attorney fees wouldn’t be such an issue.
County judge candidate Bob Clinard has said he will strongly consider hiring an attorney that Benton County could call its own. We hope he does.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 07/26/2010