The Committee on Legal Services held its 2026 organizational meeting, electing Representative Javier Mabrey as chair and Senator Lisa Frizell as vice chair, adopting two technical rule amendments, and receiving a litigation update showing $24,925 in year-to-date outside counsel costs across three active matters. The most substantive discussion centered on whether the committee's $250/hour outside counsel rate — unchanged since 2022 — is too low to attract qualified attorneys, with members broadly agreeing a rate increase is warranted but deferring action to the February budget meeting.
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Representative Yeah Camacho argued that $250/hour 'doesn't even cover cost for most law firms' and characterized it as asking attorneys to work at a 'low bono or almost pro bono' rate, while Senator Vice Weissman agreed with the substance but explicitly stated 'probably not this year,' recommending the topic come back before the committee next year rather than be acted on immediately. No member argued against increasing the rate on the merits; the tension was over timing, not principle.
“This is not so much of a question, but an observation as someone in the local legal market. $250 doesn't even cover cost for most law firms. So what we're really asking most attorneys in the local market to do is do this at a low bono or almost pro bono rate.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood morning, everyone. Committee and Legal Services will come to order on Thursday, January 22nd. Mr. Nearing, please start us off with a roll call. Representative Camacho. Here. Senator Carson. Present. Senator Frazelle. Present. Senator Gonzalez. Excused. Representative Hartsuk. Here. Representative Joseph. Here. Representative Walk. Excused. Representative Mabry. Here. Senator Roberts. Here. And Mr. Chair. Here. We have a quorum. We're advised there's an accident on 25 that may be impacting the travel timing of some members, but we thought we would get going. Just to note our agenda for the record, this is our organizational meeting, as required, early with the start of a regular session of the General Assembly. So we will be electing officers for the 2026 year. We will then consider some updates to our rules and have an update on litigation. And then Director Tacheco has some notes for us concerning our outside counsel roster, and we just need to take care of scheduling. But to the first item, everyone should have a memo just briefly reminding us of the procedures for election of officers. Ms. Chase, I wasn't sure if you wanted to add anything about this or maybe just take questions, if members…
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