Last year, after the County had already paid the law firm of Duane Morris over $100,000 for work trying to recover the costs from the mold and HVAC problems with the Champaign County nursing home, State's Attorney decided to change course and hire local attorney Joe Phebus to represent the County instead. The decision to hire outside legal counsel is one that rests solely with the State's Attorney. Rietz was also the one who made the first misguided decision to hire Duane Morris. At the time, the News-Gazette story (which is available here) made much of the fact that Phebus was working for a reduced rate of $300 per hour and that we were saving money compared to using Duane Morris.
Since this was the decision of Rietz, the County Board never voted on Phebus' contract and I don't even believe that any of the Board Members saw it.
I became curious about the contract recently because, despite being hired last August, the county has yet to pay Phebus any money. So I asked for a copy of the contract which you can see here. Just as advertised, the contract calls for a $300 per hour rate. But that is only the minimum. There is also another clause in the contract that reads as follows.
c. FINAL FEE FACTORS. It is understood and agreed that the ultimate professional fee cannot be ascertained at this time, but the final fee Client will be charged will be based upon a combination of factors including time expended, unique time demands, the expertise of Attorney handling this matter, the amount, the character and importance of the litigation, the amount of money and value of the property affected, the professional skill and experience called for, the time saved and difficulties avoided, the results obtained and the ability to pay, without specific allocations, but in no event shall it be less than minimum hourly fee.
So we have an open ended contract where apparently the fee will have to be negotiated at the end. In fact, it appears that the final fee will be up to the discretion of Rietz. It also may give some clues about Phebus' litigating tactics which seem to be less focused on getting a reasonable settlement in arbitration than on finding a huge payoff in the circuit court.
Of course, Rietz's political relationship with Phebus already raised a few eyebrows. If she is now going to be in the position of deciding what percentage of the settlement pie that he's going to get, her position will be even more untenable.
