FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Editor’s note: This is the latest article in a series on the cost of private attorneys and how they are hired by the city.

Despite plans announced last year by council leadership to bring Fairhope into compliance with Alabama law in how it hires private attorneys, last week the City Council approved the hiring of a second lawyer this year without a written contract.

“To be perfectly candid, we need to do a better job on the contract part,” Councilman Rick Kingrea said at the March 14 council meeting. “At the very minimum we should get a letter of understanding. It doesn’t have to be a formal three- or four-page contract, but it certainly should be a letter of agreement.”

As reported by The Fairhope Courier last September, the city has hired private lawyers since 2000 with neither council approval nor written contracts. Section 11-47-5 of the Code of Alabama requires that all municipal contracts must be in writing.

Some observers of The Courier series, including the publisher of The Fairhope Times blog in correspondence with the council, have noted written contracts create a paper trail that the public can follow to determine which attorneys are hired and how much they cost the city.

A month after The Courier article ran last year, the council passed a resolution to require notice of when lawsuits are filed against the city.

And council leadership stated that, although written contracts would not be required for existing outside counsel, the city would require written contracts for the hire of private attorneys in the future.

But for the first two private attorneys engaged by the city this year, written contracts were not used.

On March 14, the council approved the hiring of Ben Goldman of the Hand Arendall law firm to represent the city in a federal bankruptcy case at a rate of $200 per hour. And February 28, the council approved the hiring of Sam Irby in a state court case at $300 per hour.

In those first two outside counsel hirings in 2011, written contracts between the city and the attorneys were not used and do not yet exist, according to city staff.

“We move slowly but we have been trying,” Council President Lonnie Mixon said March 14 of the council’s efforts to change how outside counsel are hired. “There will be written contracts.”