In this photo you can see just about everyone in the County Attorneys Office. I don't understand how, with this many people working for the County looking at contracts, we get such bad deals. I am thinking of the Marlins contract, the Wackenhut security contract, the Homestead Speedway contract, our transportation contracts, etc. It seems like we always get the short end of the stick. And, why are we always hiring outside council? What gives?
21 comments:
All of them making ridiculously high salaries. They don't work late or keep track of hours like other lawyers. Biggest scam in town. And jobs in the County Attorney's Office are NEVER advertised. You need to know someone to get in the club. It's enough to make you sick.
It's a syndicate. Great foot.
oops. foto.
The county will never get quality attorneys until they conduct competitive recruitments, something they haven't done since the 1960's. Their mysterious insider selection process is what we call a "worst practice."
With all those attorneys how come criminals continue to install illegal LED billboards on all our busiest highways?
19 illegal LED billboards approved by City of Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff for his cronies. All illegal.
Granted, the recruitment process may be less than transparent, and the payroll is generous, but the track record for defending the county taxpayers against suits filed by major national firms is impressive (the scorecard should be reported annually). Keep in mind, county contracts are negotiated by the administration and approved by the commission. Many stupid choices are legal, it is the job of the county attorney to defend the county decisions once they are made. Even if a bit begrudgingly, these attorneys deserve to be appreciated.
The hiring of Robert Cuevas as the county’s top attorney was an absolute joke. There was no advertisement and no search. He was promoted without any competition to the job at a salary of more than $300k/year. Then he retired with a full pension within a year. Then he returned one month later to the same job. Cuevas now makes $373,469/year plus the six figure pension money and he is also working on his second pension.
Good comments but here is a question the county attorney hates to address: how is it that an attorney can represent both the elected mayor and the county commission at the same time? In most of the world, this situation would constitute a conflict-of-interest since under the charter they are separate branches of government.
The county attorneys are a heterogeneous bunch. Some are brilliant and some are just punching a metaphorical clock until they start picking up those beautiful retirement checks.
I cannot believe someone claimed the track record of the CAO is a good one. They are afraid to go to trial and they settle almost every case.
A few of them like to fly around the country to do out of state "depositions." look into that one.
You guys are wrong about so many different things I'll have to address them one at a time.
The county attorney's office gets hundreds of applications for each open position. It is an extremely competitive place to work. As a result, most of the attorneys there are highly qualified. Many of them could double their salaries tomorrow by going to the private sector. Some of them have. Yes, they work a nicer schedule than the mopes at Greenberg Traurig, but they also make less money. And most of them could work at GT if they wanted to.
As far as the bad deals you're referring to, the decision-makers are the people you elect, not bureaucrats in the government center. Municipal attorneys have no decision-making authority; they just check to make sure things are legal. If you think the Marlins stadium was a bad deal - and it certainly was - talk to the commissioners. They're the ones who write the checks. Given your concern with charter issues, you should know this.
Just in response to the general sentiment that the office doesn't do a good job: Ask anyone who works at a high-end firm in Miami about the office. Most will tell you that, if the county attorney's office was private, it would be one of the best private firms in south Florida.
And finally, ask anyone who has tried to sue the county if they think they got a sweetheart deal. I doubt they will say yes - you'd be more likely to get water from a stone than a nice "go away" settlement. These people play hardball.
I don't work at the county, never have, never will. I probably couldn't get a job there, considering I didn't go to an ivy league school. But for christ sakes, do some research before you write.
Hey, last anon ... where are the CAO "open positions" advertised? They have never been advertised on the county website, the Miami Herald, or any of the traditional places, so we don't know.
Let me guess ... are they advertised in the UPenn alumni newsletter?
The County Attorney's Office has 35 "paralegal specialists" that are paid as salaried employees in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. FLSA regulations firmly dictate that paralegals and legal assistants are hourly employees entitled to overtime.
If there is not one attorney in the County Attorney's Office who is bright enough to see multiple violations of the law within their own office, how can we believe that any of them are competent?
I am reminded of a line by Burt Reynolds, I think in the movie Smokie and the Bandit where he says something to the effect of this looks like a convention of a**holes
To the long winded person, plenty of attorneys have contacted me about County deals that said their hands were tied to stop them. They can see what is bad in the contracts, they could have forced the issue on seeing the Marlin's financials before signing off on the deal. If they were more proactive they might lose their jobs but we would have a better county to live in.
County attorney jobs are advertised on legal job sites and with law schools, not in the Herald.
Genius - We have three branches of government with independent decision-making power. The bureaucracy, or administration, or whatever you want to call it, is not one of those three branches. Bureaucrats execute the orders given to them by the legislature/ executive. If they started fighting back on a substantive level government would not work. It would also be unconstitutional on the federal level and against the charter on the local level. Just sayin'.
Just as the planning dept. gives opinions I would assume the legal department also weighs in on contracts. The planning dept does a good job on educating commissioners why can't legal do the same? They could be over-ruled but they should point out bad policy, implications of the vote and badly written contracts like the one for Biscayne landings cleanup. The developer agrees to pay for it in the RFP in their bid, the next thing I knew county funds were being used instead.
The county attorney advertises jobs on the same fictitious sites where the county commissioners advertise jobs with their offices. Keep looking for them! Lol!
It is pure nonsense and disinformation to claim that the county attorneys do not and/or should not provide policy as well as legal advice.
The fact is that they do both all the time and claiming otherwise misleads the public. All attorneys have a duty to advise their clients when the client's agreements contain potentially harmful provisions. The more experience the lawyer, the greater the duty to warn.
One example is the failure of the county attorney's office to include a provision in the baseball deal (or alert City of Miami to the possibility that a provision was needed) to pass on any costs to the tenants if the baseball stadium parking lots were deemed subject to property taxes.
This issue is not new. The City of Homestead has been paying property taxes on the publicly owned Homestead-Miami Speedway for years. The CAO also represents the property appraiser and therefore konws the issue better than virtually anyone in the state.
The folks at the CAO want it both ways: they want to influence policy without having their fingerprints showing up on the decisions. The seek both power and deniability.
Do you want to know the site that the county uses to find its attorneys?
It's called Murray Greenberg's rolodex!
How are the sleazy hiring practices of the County Attorney's Office any different than those of County Mayor Carlos Gimenez?
Gimenez just hired 5 highly paid deputy mayors and 25 department directors without a single job advertisement. The Board of County Commissioners needs to adopt a policy that mandates a transparent and competitive hiring process for all non-political county jobs. Put it into the County Code and hold the administration accountable.
The public deserves the best quality administrators and attorneys available, not just those that have "the hook up."
Rebeca Sosa, are you listening?
Post a Comment