Should KB Have a Lawyer on Staff?

Village Council members will discuss an idea to make a departure from decades of legal precedent Tuesday —- not in the law itself, but in the way the job of Village attorney is handled.

Since incorporation, the Village has hired an outside law firm — Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole & Bierman — to handle the majority of its legal business. Services range from sitting on the dais to offer points of parliamentary procedure to drafting ordinances to trying cases in court.

But new Council Member Ignacio Segurola will ask colleagues Tuesday to consider the pros and cons of hiring a permanent, in-house counsel on staff, as some other municipalities do. One reason: Weiss Serota sometimes has conflicts when its other clients have interests adverse to those of Key Biscayne.

“Weiss Serota has conflicts with the City and the County; these are our neighbors,” Segurola said.

The most recent case-in-point: discussions with the City of Miami over the Ultra Music Festival. Because of conflicts, the Village had to hire another firm to help Village Manager Andrea Agha and the Council get professional legal advice.

“I’d like to see where the rest of the Council stands on the issue,” Segurola said. “It all comes down to the person who’s hired.”

Mayor Mike Davey says the idea of having a staff attorney, who would have the Village as his or her only client, is not new. But he says the quality of the legal advice should be the top concern, noting with some irony that Weiss Serota’s conflict issues are “a byproduct of its effectiveness.”

The hiring of legal counsel is one of the few hires that Council members can make directly under the Village Charter — almost all other positions are selected by the manager. But Segurola says he would want Agha’s input in any selection process, since the Manager’s office would be the one getting legal advice and implementing it.