The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Department
State House Boston, MA 02133
(617) 725-4000
MITT ROMNEY
GOVERNOR
KERRY HEALEY
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 5, 2003
CONTACT:
Shawn Feddeman
Karen Grant
(617) 725-4025
ROMNEY TO STREAMLINE LEGAL FUNCTION IN EXECUTIVE BRANCH
Proposes to create a public interest law firm
Governor Mitt Romney today previewed his Fiscal Year 2004 budget by describing his plan to concentrate the lawyers in state government into a single law office, a sweeping reform that would change the way legal work is conducted in the Executive Branch.
Currently, there are 800 lawyers in the Executive Branch of government, excluding the attorney general, district attorneys and other branches not under the Governor's control.
A similar consolidation is already in effect in Pennsylvania, where a Governor's Office of General Counsel was created to perform all legal services for executive agencies. Despite its larger population, geography and budget, the Pennsylvania model uses 500 lawyers.
“Eight hundred lawyers are far too many to be operating in one branch of state government. By streamlining and bringing our legal force under a single umbrella, we will be providing a more efficient service while saving taxpayers money,” Romney said.
The proposed plan would significantly reduce the number of lawyers and centralize them in a new Office of Solicitor General. The office, which already exists under the Massachusetts Constitution, has the potential to save between $15 million and $30 million annually.
Romney noted that Executive Branch lawyers are not organized sensibly. He said various pods of lawyers are interspersed throughout state agencies without any coordination or central management. Under current law, lawyers are forbidden from assisting other lawyers doing related work in other agencies.
Romney noted that there are also vast misallocations of legal resources under the current system. For instance, there are over 60 lawyers in environmental agencies, but only five lawyers statewide in K-12 education agencies.
Despite the large number of in-house lawyers, Massachusetts still spends more than $15 million annually on private sector outside lawyers with no central review or control of outside counsel fees.
“Under this new system, Massachusetts will be positioned to have its own public interest law firm offering taxpayers the best product at the best possible price,” said Romney.
In addition to the lawyer consolidation, Romney said he is also looking to restructure the current administrative hearing process conducted by various agencies into a centralized administrative court.
“We estimate a yearly savings of more than $2 million will be achieved with a consolidated administrative court structure that will end up improving the delivery of services while significantly decreasing delay and expense,” said Romney.
Ken Felter, partner at New England's largest law firm, Goodwin Procter, LLP, praised Romney's move.
“Successful large law firms have learned from experience that the best way to deliver the highest quality legal services to clients in the most efficient and cost-effective way is to centralize decision-making, make all their lawyers accountable and responsible for their work product and eliminate unnecessary multiplication of effort and functions,” said Felter.
“The time has definitely come for these initiatives in Massachusetts state government,” Felter added.
This is not the first time that the number of lawyers in government has vexed the state's chief executive. In the 1890's, then-Massachusetts Governor Frederic Greenhalge bemoaned the fact that Massachusetts spent nearly $50,000 on lawyers under the Governor's control. Today, Massachusetts spends more than $50 million.
After calling for reforms, Greenhalge eventually died in office from the strain of the job.
Romney said the administration would be working to advance reforms in a broad range of areas with the filing of the budget for Fiscal Year 2004, which begins July 1.
“This package of legal reforms is only a small sliver of the kind of changes we will be proposing to apply across the board in our budget,” said Romney.
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