By BERNARD ORSMAN
Lawyers have enjoyed a bumper time, courtesy of Auckland City ratepayers, with five city law firms charging most of the $6.16 million in legal fees paid in the last financial year. That was almost double the $3.2 million spent in the previous year.
Controversial issues, such as the sale
of pensioner housing, the selldown of airport shares and Britomart, gave law firms plenty of work.
The council's main legal adviser, Simpson Grierson, earned the bulk of the fees, or $4.5 million. The council's other preferred legal advisers are Buddle Findlay, Heaney & Co, Meredith Connell, and Walters Williams.
Legal bills accounted for about 2 per cent of the council's $312 million rates revenue last year.
Mayor John Banks, who campaigned for financial accountability and to control spending on consultants, including lawyers, said a lot of the big legal bills in the past year were for one-off projects.
The spending was necessary but it could be argued whether the council got good value for money in every instance, he conceded.
"You are not going to see another legal bill like that at Auckland City."
He said he planned to set up a forensic team within the council to do snap audits of law firms and other contractors to ensure work was being delivered and ratepayers received value for money.
The council was looking to bypass expensive lawyers by giving its own internal lawyers access to legal opinions and other information online.
It would be auditing monthly invoices to see whether outside legal work could be done online.
