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City law department warns attorney attrition is driving reliance on outside counsel
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Summary
The City Attorney’s office told the City Council it has lost most of its attorneys in recent years, leaving remaining litigators with more than 100 cases each and heightening reliance on outside law firms.
The City Attorney’s law department told the City Council’s budget committee that heavy attorney attrition and constrained pay are forcing the office to rely on outside counsel and to restructure operations.
“Over the last year, we've lost 14 positions,” the law department’s presenter said, and clarified that “11” of those were attorneys. She told the council the department now has about 15 attorneys and that litigators are carrying an “over 100 cases per litigation attorney” caseload.
Turner said the office’s 2026 priorities include expanding code-enforcement legal staff, digitizing records and records-retention schedules, and creating a new contract template and DocuSign pilot to speed the contracts process. She reported the department has collected “over $1,900,000 in fines and fees on behalf of the city of New Orleans” as of September 2025 and that the department’s full-time-equivalency for 2026 is 55.98.
Council members pressed the department on pay and retention. Turner said recruitment is limited by budget constraints, that a 2023 attorney salary study was submitted to the council, and that the law department previously had a $500,000 budget request cut. “They all leave for more money,” she told the committee when asked why attorneys depart.
Members also focused on the city’s use of outside counsel. Turner listed longstanding outside-counsel arrangements — noting one firm involved in the Hard Rock collapse litigation and saying the city recovered $5,000,000 in a negotiated settlement. She said many of the large outside contracts are winding down as their underlying matters resolve but recommended monitoring and, where appropriate, continuing specific contracts tied to ongoing recoveries.
The law department proposed several nonbudgetary efficiencies to offset cost pressures, including restructuring public-records fees to reflect administrative costs, charging for digital delivery, and launching a municipal-diversion program to improve collections.
What happens next: Councilmembers asked the administration for detailed accounting of amounts paid to outside firms and for a clearer plan on when and whether contracts should be renewed if the underlying litigation or consent decrees conclude in the near term.
