A law firm that’s already made more than $400,000 from city taxpayers stands to make more thanks to the lawsuit filed by the city.
Mayor Cara Spencer filed suit earlier this month against the Police Board, as well as the state of Missouri, alleging that the state takeover of city police represents an “unfunded mandate” by the state, which is impermissible under the Missouri constitution.
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But that action seems to trigger a new, more costly phase in the Police Board’s contract with the Graville Law Firm. The four-attorney, Des Peres-based firm is billing the Board at a rate of $275 per hour for firm partners and $250 per hour for the work of associate attorneys. When handling litigation matters, those rates go up by about 40 percent, to $390 per hour for partners and $350 for associates, according to a copy of the firm’s contract that SLM obtained from the city through the Sunshine Law.
Any payments for representation in litigation are on top of the $412,504 the city has paid the Graville Firm since September. The sum does not seem to include any payments for the month of April, suggesting that the city’s tab is likely to only increase before the end of the fiscal year in June.
The firm’s owner, Chris Graville, responded late in the day yesterday to requests for comment with a brief email suggesting SLM had gotten some misinformation and offering to discuss things further on the phone. Calls and texts made to the number provided went unanswered. Graville did note that last year the Police Board was able to cut service by the City Counselor, saving the police $1.6 million.
“I would say the provision is unusual,” Alderman Matt Devoti tells SLM, referring to the increased hourly rates for litigation work. “It struck me when I saw it.” Devoti is an attorney who has carved out a position for himself as a backer of the police while at the same time no fan of state control.
Devoti says that for his firm, whether it’s handling administrative or investigative work, litigation or an appeal, “it’s the same rate.” Although, he adds, “If you can find someone to hire you at a given set of circumstances, more power to you.”
Some critics suggest Graville’s hard-line negotiating tactics triggered the lawsuit that could now boost his firm’s pay.
“Graville is strategically miles ahead of the Mayor’s office,” says Conner Kerrigan, a former mayoral spokesman turned political commentator. “He built a mechanism to pay himself more money once this inevitably ended up in the courts, and now the taxpayers are footing that bill.” (Kerrigan, it’s worth noting, is also an outspoken critic of Spencer, having served as communications director for then-Mayor Tishaura Jones.)
Spencer’s lawsuit is multifaceted. She is asking that a judge rule the state takeover of the department as unconstitutional. However, if the judge declines to do that, the lawsuit asks the court to rule that the amount the department is asking for exceeds what is required by state law.
The Police Board is asking for around $250 million. Spencer thinks it should be closer to $219 million.
The relationship between Spencer and the rest of the Police Board got rocky in January when the Board approved a 7 percent raise for officers, which Spencer said was concerning due to the money it could pull away from other workers. But the relationship really went off the rails two months later in March when Spencer said Graville indicated to her that he’d calculated 25 percent of general revenue (the percent the city must spend on police under the state law now being challenged) to be closer to $333 million, including one-quarter of the Rams settlement money and the city’s reserve funds. The $333 million figure—raised by Graville—seems to have been a major factor in the city going on the offense.
The city’s lawsuit makes reference to that $333 million, calling it “errant” and “post hoc” and noting that the Board itself later revised it downward to $320 million.
Police Board president Chris Saracino has been adamant that the board is not asking for $333 million. He says the police budget for next fiscal year should be around $250 million, though he generally adds that figure is 18 percent of general revenue, implying that the $333 million calculation remains, in the Board’s view, a valid one.
