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HomeMy WebLinkAboutopinion regarding drainage board lost- B rowr fl dd dd I L' c Sarah Steele Riordan Member 317.237.3293 (t) 317.237.3900 (f) sriordan @fbtlaw.com October 31, 2013 VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL csellers @cityofjeff.net The Hon. Connie Sellers President, City of Jeffersonville Common Council Suite 227, City Hall 500 Quartermaster Court Jeffersonville, IN 47130 -3672 Re: Common Council of City of Jeffersonville, IN -- Advice and Opinion Regarding Authority of City Boards Our File No. (pending) Dear Ms. Sellers: We are pleased that you have asked Frost Brown Todd to serve as your counsel in this matter. This letter will confirm our discussion with you regarding your engagement of our firm and will describe the basis upon which our firm will provide legal services to you. Accordingly, we submit for your approval the following provisions governing our engagement. If you agree, please sign the enclosed copy of this letter in the space provided below. If you have any questions about these provisions, do not hesitate to call. Again, we are pleased to have the opportunity to serve you. Client; Scope of Representation. Our client in this matter will be Common Council of City of Jeffersonville, IN ( "you" or the "Client "). We will be engaged to advise you in connection with providing advice and opinion regarding the authority of city boards. You may limit or expand the scope of our representation from time to time, provided that any substantial expansion must be agreed to by us in a separate engagement letter. While we would be interested in assisting you in other matters, unless we are specifically engaged for some other future matter this will confirm that our representation of you is limited to the foregoing matter and will end when it is concluded. Fees. Our fees are based primarily upon the time expended by our attorneys and paralegals on the engagement, including attorney and paralegal travel time which is charged at regular hourly rates. Attorneys and paralegals have been assigned hourly rates based upon their experience and level of expertise. The rates of those attorneys likely to work on this matter range from $325 in the case of myself to $180 in the case of Beau Zoeller. Our hourly rates are 201 N. Illinois Street, Suite 1900 1 P.O. Box 44961 1 Indianapolis, Indiana 46244 -0961 1 317.237.3800 I frostbrowntodd.com Overnight delivery use zip code 46204 Offices in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia The Hon. Connie Sellers October 31, 2013 Page 2 reviewed periodically and may be increased from time to time. It may be necessary to add or change attorneys working on your behalf. Consent to Future Conflicts. You are aware that our firm is a relatively large law firm and represents many other companies and individuals. Some may be direct competitors of yours or otherwise may have business or legal interests that are contrary to your interests. It is therefore possible that during the time we are working for you, an existing or future client may seek our assistance in connection with a transaction, pending or potential litigation, or another matter or proceeding in which such a client's interests are, or potentially may become, adverse to your interests. This can create situations where work for one client on a matter might preclude us from assisting other clients on unrelated matters. To avoid the potential for this kind of restriction on our practice, we ask you to agree, and you hereby do agree, that Frost Brown Todd may continue to represent, or may undertake in the future to represent, any existing or future client in any matter (including but not limited to transactions, litigation or other dispute resolution proceedings), even if the interests of that client in the other matter are directly adverse to the interests of the Jeffersonville Common Council. We do not, however, intend for you to waive your right to have our firm maintain the confidentiality of client information obtained by us in the course of representing you. Thus, if our representation of another client in a matter is directly adverse to you, our lawyers who have had significant involvement in our work for you will not work on the matter for such other client, and appropriate measures will be taken to assure that proprietary or other confidential information of a non - public nature concerning you which we acquire as a result of representing you will not be made available to lawyers or others in our firm involved in such matter. You are hereby advised, and have had the opportunity, to consult with other counsel about this prospective waiver. You also understand and acknowledge that, in the course of our representation of other clients pursuant to this prospective waiver, we may obtain confidential information of interest to you that we cannot share with you. ABA Statement of Policy. We wish to inform you, and then you acknowledge, that it is our firm's policy to comply strictly with the terms of the ABA Statement of Policy Regarding Lawyers' Responses to Auditors' Requests for Information (December 1975) in any response that you request we make to your auditors regarding "loss contingencies" affecting you. Additional Standard Terms. Our engagement is also subject to the policies included in the enclosed memorandum. We appreciate the opportunity to represent you. Please return a signed copy of this letter to me in the enclosed envelope to confirm that these terms of our engagement are acceptable to you. Our representation of you will commence upon your acceptance of the terms of our engagement. However, please note that your instructing us or continuing to instruct us on this matter will constitute your full acceptance of the terms set out above and attached. 201 N. Illinois Street, Suite 1900 I P.O. Box 44961 1 Indianapolis, Indiana 46244 -0961 1317.237.3800 1 frostbrowntodd.com Overnight delivery use zip code 46204 Offices in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia , The Hon. Connie Sellers October 31, 2013 Page 3 We look forward very much to working with you on this matter. Very truly yours, FROST BROWN TODD LLC /s/ Sarah Steele Riordan Sarah Steele Riordan SSR:sg Enclosures The foregoing is understood and accepted: Common ouncil of Jeffersonville, IN By: .. ;� Connie Sellers, President { 201 N. Illinois Street, Suite 1900 I P.O. Box 44961 I Indianapolis, Indiana 46244 -0961 1 317.237.3800 1 frostbrowntodd.com Overnight delivery use zip code 46204 Offices in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia