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HomeMy WebLinkAbout4910Contract Number: Vendor: Subject: Department: File Class: Begin Date: End Date: Review Date: Vault Date: 4910 GORDON THOMAS HONEYWELL Legal Services - KCCHA Condominiums Legal LEG 12-1 08/20/2009 06/15/2011 Comments: Review Date for Tracking Only ►'�;°. ". GURDON THOMAS HONEYWELL `� Donald S. Cohen Direct: (206) 676-7531 E-mail: dcohen@gth-law.com August 20, 2009 Roger A. Lubovich City Attorney City of Bremerton 345 - 6th Street, Suite 600 Bremerton, WA 98337 R E: Lega/ Services Agreement Dear Roger: As I mentioned on our call, this will serve as our legal services agreement. Let me say once again how much I appreciate working with the City of Bremerton. We want to express our enthusiasm about the opportunity to serve you and emphasize our . desire to provide you with the highest quality and most efficient legal service. The general character of the services you have asked us to perform is to provide legal advice and representation in the Kitsap County Housing Authority condominium project matter. I will serve as your primary contact at our firm. We may use other personnel as needed, but I assure you that we do not unnecessarily assign personnel to a case. Our policy regarding work assignments is described further on the enclosed "Billing and Fee Arrangements" attachment. Our fees will be based on the time spent on your behalf, plus reimbursement of out- of-pocket expenses. My hourly billing rate on this matter during 2009 will be $335. Paralegal assistance will also be utilized as appropriate. Paralegal hourly rates range from $75 to $130. All hourly billing rates are reviewed and subject to adjustment at year end. My hourly rate will increase to $350 effective January 1, 2010. Further details on our fee and cost arrangements are set out in the enclosed Billing and Fee Arrangements Reply to: Seattle O�ce 600 University, Swte 2100 Seattle, WA 98101 (206) 676-7500 (206) 676-7575 (fax) Law Offices � www.gth-law.com Tacoma Office 1201 Paciflc Ave., Suite 2100 (253) 620-6500 Tacoma, WA 98402 (253) 620-6565 (fax) [203635 vl.doc] ` ��; ��1 �'Y � Gordon Thomas Honeywell �� August 20, 2009 Page 2 memorandum. While we cannot "guarantee" any particular result on any given matter, we do commit to use our best professional efforts on your behalf. If the information in this letter is acceptable to you, please sign below and return the original to me. A copy is enclosed for your files. A full and candid communication about all aspects of our work for you is essential. If at any time you have questions, please contact me immediately. Thank you again for selecting our firm. We look forward to working with you. Sinc���-=� "�°-.� Donald S. Cohen DSC/kha Attachment Approved and Accepted: CITY OF BREMERTON By Ro r A. Lubovich City Attorney Date: .�u�'T Z l. Z-UU � (203635 vl.doc� �� Gordon Thomas Honeywell «P August 20, 2009 Page 3 GORDON, THOMAS, HONEYWELL, MALANCA, PETERSON & DAHEIM Billing and Fee Arrangements Understandin�. We are pleased to have the opportunity to serve you. Our aim is to provide the highest quality and most efficient legal services possible. Experience has shown that our relationship will be stronger if we start it with a mutual understanding about fees and their payment. Unless our engagement letter alters these arrangements, we will assume that these terms are acceptable to you and that they will also apply to future matters on which we can be of service to you. Fees. Our fees will be based primarily on the amount of time spent by lawyers and paralegals, and in some instances by law and document clerks, subject to certain adjustments. Each lawyer and paralegal in our firm has an hourly billing rate, and the rate times the number of hours spent on a project is the initial basis for determining our fees. Current hourly billing rates for lawyers in the firm range from $110 to $400 per hour. Legal assistant rates are $75 to $130. Our general schedule of rates is usually revised annually. Work Assi�,nments. The lawyer you deal with primarily may assign parts of your work to other lawyers or other personnel in the office under his or her supervision, and may use other firm lawyers where specialized help is needed. The supervising lawyer will continue to be responsible to you for the entire assignment, however, and will be available to discuss the use of other personnel with you. It is our practice to assign tasks among lawyers, paralegals, law clerks and document clerks in such a way as to produce the highest quality of work at reasonable expense to you. Disbursements On Your Account. Statements will normally be rendered monthly for work done in the previous month, covering and identifying time spent and services rendered, as well as disbursements and other charges. These disbursements and charges include items incurred and paid for by us on your behalf such as long distance telephone charges, special postage, delivery charges, telex or telecopy charges, travel, photocopying, and use of other service providers such as printers or experts, if needed. In litigated matters, we include payments we must make for process servers, court reporters, witness fees and so on. We also make separate charges for the use of "Westlaw" or "Lexis," which are computerized legal research systems that in our experience significantly reduce lawyer research time. Except for specialized word processing services, we normally do not make a separate charge for stenographic or word [203635 vl.doc] i�,. :� . _ ,.. Gordon Thomas Honeywell August 20, 2009 Page 4 processing work unless there is an unusual situation arising out of your needs that requires overtime staff work. We may request that large disbursement items (in excess of $500) be billed directly to you for payment. Payment. Payment will be due 30 days after the date of our statement. If we do not receive comment about the statement within 30 days of the statement date, we will assume you have seen the bill and find it acceptable. Statements unpaid within 30 days will be subject to a late charge of 1% per month (12% per year) on the unpaid balance commencing from the date of the statement and continuing until paid. Payment should be made in U.S. dollars, in checks or drafts payable to Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim. uestions. If you have questions about any aspect of our arrangement or our statements from time to time, feel entirely free to raise those questions. It is important that we proceed on a mutually clear and satisfactory basis in our work for you. We are open to discussion of all of these matters, including the amount of our statements, and we encourage you to be frank about them. [203635 vl.doc] , � ' `.�. "^''J%'u �c: .,�� t: ;.:,;� ° rs' . , " - .- —_