WERE VALLEY LAW FIRMS EDGED OUT OF CITY WORK?

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo plans to meet today with a group of San Fernando Valley law firms that claim they have been shut out of city contracts in the past in favor of law firms based downtown and in Century City.

Delgadillo said he was responding to the lawyers' grievance, not directly to secession, in responding to complaints that the City Attorney's Office has traditionally not hired Valley firms. Mayor James Hahn held the city attorney's post for 16 years before Delgadillo.

``I learned during the campaign and subsequent to the campaign that there were a number of Valley law firms that felt all the work that came through this office wasn't open to Valley law firms or firms outside the downtown power structure, quote-unquote,'' Delgadillo said. ``I felt as though that was wrong.''

Delgadillo plans to meet with about 15 Valley-based law firms today. He also plans future meetings with women- and minority-owned firms.

``The city attorney has turned to private law firms quite a bit in the last several years under City Attorney Hahn, and there was a sense in the legal community that he always went to the same (firms),'' said Woodland Hills attorney Fred Gaines, who is also chairman of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association. ``A lot of it went to the same people over and over again. And not much, if any, to firms outside of downtown and Century City.''

But Encino attorney Lee Alpert, who helped organize the meeting and served on Delgadillo's transition team, said the meeting was not intended as a criticism of Hahn.

``I see it as an opportunity more than a complaint about what happened in the past,'' Alpert said.

Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said that when Hahn was city attorney there was no intention to exclude Valley law firms.