Legal News

Delgadillo challenges Villaraigosa on reduction of nonlawyers at City Attorney's Office

By Jason Siegel

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa thinks the City Attorney's Office is overstaffed, proposing a 5% cut.

The ratio of lawyers to non-lawyer staff at the City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office "are greater than Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, O'Melveny & Myers, and some of the biggest law firms, which are basically three lawyers for each administrative position," Villaraigosa told the Los Angeles Times.

Villaraigosa told the Times to "do the research...to confirm it." They did and came to a different conclusion than the mayor. A November 2007 survey by Downtown News found that large law firms have at least twice as many non-lawyer staff as lawyers.

Delgadillo's office is now questioning the Villaraigosa's proposed budget, arguing that the City Attorney's Office is understaffed compared to law firms, the Times reported.

Delgadillo recently protested the cut of 60 legal clerks and secretaries in his office, saying prosecutors would need to spend time on paperwork that they could be spending on convicting gang members, child abusers and other misdemeanor criminals, the Daily News reported.

Matt Szabo, a spokesperson for the mayor, called Delgadillo's challenge Rocky Horror Show-style ridiculous. "The suggestion that criminals will be running free through the streets because a few misdemeanor prosecutors will have to share secretaries is completely divorced from any notion of reality," Szabo told the Daily News.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).