By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

The Osceola County Commission Monday shortlisted and ranked three law firms to possibly serve as county attorney and then shortlisted two individual candidates for the job if negotiations with a firm for that service fails.

If negotiations with one of the firms to serve as county attorney does not bear fruit, an individual then would be hired to replace interim County Attorney George Nickerson in what commissioners termed a “hybrid” department. That individual would then direct the county legal department on a budget of less than $1 million with perhaps two attorneys total and a small support staff, with the bulk of the county’s legal work outsourced.

The top-ranked law firm was Fowler, O’ Quinn, Feeney & Sneed, of Orlando, followed by Brown, Garganese, Weiss & D’Agresta, also of Orlando, and finally by Bryant Miller Olive, of Tallahassee. The top-ranked individual candidates, who tied, were Celeste Adorno, of Tallahassee, and Andrew W. Mai, of Sioux City, Iowa.

Commissioners individually last week Friday morning interviewed all five candidates one by one and then in the afternoon interviewed them individually as a commission; Monday’s rankings were based on those interviews and on a review of résumés. The commission, however, did not interview representatives of the law firms on Monday and their ranking was based solely on submitted letters of interest and firm profiles.

While the commission voted 3-2 to move forward on the hybrid legal department, details on what such a department would entail were not finalized.

The commission is running out of time on a decision, however, because Nickerson cannot be on staff beyond July 1, due to his planned retirement. However, Nickerson said he could continue working for the county under a contract as a private attorney if the county failed to either hire a firm or an individual.

“I would not leave you in the lurch,” he told commissioners Monday.

Commissioner John Quiñones said it is important to have attorneys in-house to answer questions from the public and from commissioners, “similar to what we have now.”

“We could have two attorneys and staff with the understanding that an outside firm would do the bulk of the work,” Quiñones said, adding that there would have to be a way to cap the cost of that outside firm using some other method of payment other than “billable hours.”

Commissioner Michael Harford, who voted for the hybrid department, said he still has concerns about cost with an outside firm serving as county attorney.

Commissioner Fred Hawkins Jr. said he would not support hiring an outside firm to serve as county attorney and that he interpreted the county charter as saying there had to be an in-house individual serving in that office, not a firm. He said that if the commission wants to change the charter, there is a review committee in place now discussing changes.

“I don’t think you would get a firm to agree to a cap,” Hawkins said about the cost of outsourcing the job. “We should have taken this issue up months ago. George (Nickerson) will be here for less than a month; we’ve backed ourselves up against a wall.”

Commission Chairman Brandon Arrington said he isn’t for privatizing the county attorney’s office either and that he wasn’t sure what a hybrid department would look like. He said he didn’t want a situation where an individual was hired as a county attorney and then that person had to oversee the work of an outside firm the commission chose to do the bulk of the legal work.

Commissioner Frank Attkisson said hiring a firm should only be done if the county can have a method in place to control costs.

“Could we deal with a hybrid staff? I don’t know,” said Attkisson, adding that the county commissioners need to have the ability to call counsel 24 hours a day, seven days a week and that when they make such a call that it would not be billed extra. “We’ve already set the budget at less than $1 million.”

In the end, the commission voted 5-0 to hire an individual as a county attorney if negotiations with a law firm for that service failed.

In terms of job duties, commissioners did not specifically discuss what would happen to Frank Townsend, the other attorney still at the county legal department, if a law firm were hired to serve as county attorney.

Commissioners Harford, Quiñones and Attkisson last December voted to dismiss then-County Attorney Jo Thacker for various reasons, saying there were problems with the manner in which right of way purchases were handled for road projects and because the cost of running the legal department — which included high salaries — had gotten out of hand. Since then, other attorneys in the legal department were laid off.