Office of the City Auditor

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Issued: January 2004

SUMMARY

This report presents the results of our audit of the City of Austin Law Department. This audit was approved by the City Council as part of our office’s calendar year 2003 service plan. The purpose of our work was to determine how well the department is meeting needs in three areas: client services and performance, use of outside counsel, and staffing and professional development.

We found that the Law Department as a whole is performing well in most areas with room for improvement in some. Comparison of Austin’s Law Department to other cities indicates that the department’s budget and expenditures are in line with other cities. In addition, most clients of the Law Department are satisfied with services received although we did note some opportunities for improving client services. Specifically, the department could improve service to clients who use services less frequently and clients that report to the City Council. We also found additional measurement is needed to gauge and manage performance of the department’s divisions.

In our review of the use of outside counsel, we found that Austin spends more on outside counsel and uses outside counsel for more matters than many other cities we surveyed. We also noted that although matters handled by outside counsel appear to be achieving expected outcomes, matters handled internally are also achieving expected outcomes at a much lower cost. Although spending for outside counsel cannot be eliminated, the City can manage these costs more effectively and can identify areas where outside counsel expenditures can be reduced.

In our review of the Law Department’s staffing and professional development, we noted that the Law Department is following best practice in its organizational structure but does not have adequate support staff to provide for efficient legal service delivery. More support staff would enable the department to leverage existing attorney resources more efficiently. In addition, the department has not focused on developing in-house expertise, which limits the department’s ability to use in-house attorneys in place of outside counsel.

Recommendations in this report are directed at improving client service in weak areas, collecting more meaningful information on performance, improving management of outside counsel contracts, and developing mechanisms to identify and encourage in-house expertise in high demand areas.

Click here to go to our audit request form to request a hard copy of this report (Report No. AU03315) or download the entire text of the Law Department Service Delivery (Size: 990 KB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files.

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