Rob Bridal, chief assistant county attorney for litigation, briefed the Hillsborough County liaison committee on the litigation division's workload, common case types, insurance posture and use of outside counsel.

Bridal told the group the litigation division typically manages about "700 to 800 open matters" at a time and said personal-injury and wrongful-death claims represent some of the heaviest volumes. He named Morgan & Morgan as the county's most frequent opposing firm.

On monetary limits, Bridal described the county's sovereign-immunity cap as $200,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence, and said proposals to raise the cap (some proposals discussed with figures up to $1 million–$2.5 million) had been proposed in Tallahassee but had not passed. He explained the county generally does not buy excess insurance because of cost and litigation disputes that can arise with carriers.

Regarding outside counsel, Bridal said outside lawyers are used regularly for eminent-domain work and occasionally when in-house capacity is exceeded or when conflicts require outside representation; he estimated outside-counsel spending for eminent domain in some years could be "probably under $200,000" and mentioned a related budget line that might be near $500,000.

Members pressed Bridal on whether the office tracks hours or costs by case. Bridal said the office does not maintain per-case time-tracking for all matters but that risk management compiles quarterly payout reports and staff previously calculated an effective in-house hourly rate (~$118/hour) that made outsourcing less attractive. He agreed staff could obtain more detailed risk-management figures and look up whether specific HR-related items escalated to EEOC.

On Beer Can Island, Bridal said the county has not been involved in civil litigation there but did hire outside counsel (Grey Robinson) in a code-enforcement matter; he noted that multiple departments' involvement over time can create untracked staff effort even when direct legal spending by the attorney's office is small.

Bridal and members discussed the limits of legal staff: attorneys advise on legal risk but political decisions about whether to settle or pursue litigation are the Board of County Commissioners' responsibility; confidentiality and ethical obligations constrain public disclosure of legal positions.

The committee asked staff to provide risk-management payout figures and said it would consider whether additional internal tracking or audit processes would improve efficiency.

Bridal's principal takeaways: high volume of tort claims tied to county operations, limited use of outside counsel except in eminent-domain matters, sovereign-immunity caps that affect settlement dynamics, and potential areas where the committee might request further contract- or program-level review.

The committee recorded follow-ups: staff to retrieve risk-management payout data and to verify whether listed HR complaints advanced to EEOC.