Arvada City Attorney presents 2025 office update highlighting contracts, litigation and data-driven workflows

City Attorney Rachel Morris presented the Arvada City Attorney's Office annual update on April 14, describing a 23-person operation that provides legal counsel, prosecutes municipal offenses, drafts ordinances and manages the city's risk program. "We are a team of 23 talented, hard working professionals who are dedicated to public service," Morris said, laying out the office's three-division structure and the data systems that underpin its work.

The presentation emphasized the office's shift toward data-driven workflows and centralized matter tracking. Morris and staff identified Practice Panther for legal matters and timekeeping, Axon for prosecution/case management, and Origami Risk for risk management analytics. Deputy City Attorney Jessica Morales said the civil team used those systems to support roughly 85 public meetings in 2025 and to deliver legislative and policy work across city departments.

Why it matters: the tools and volume described show how much legal staff time is absorbed by routine municipal business (contracts, ordinances, intergovernmental agreements) and by advising operational departments, a dynamic that factors into staffing and budgeting decisions.

Civil division output and intergovernmental work: Morales reported that the civil team spent about 21–34% of its time on core advisory and contracting work and completed 616 contract reviews and drafts in 2025, 44 of them emergency contracts. Notable transactions included a purchase-and-sale agreement for land intended for the city’s replacement water treatment plant, several IGAs (including a regional cold-weather sheltering agreement with Jefferson County and neighboring cities), consultation IGAs with Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes related to the Gold Strike Park redevelopment, and an IGA with the City of Wheat Ridge for Clear Creek Trail maintenance.

Litigation and recoveries: Morales described the office’s litigation caseload as proactive and varied, reporting about 19 active lawsuits and administrative complaints in 2025 and noting the office pursued matters to recover city losses. She said ten cases were resolved in the city's favor and highlighted a class-action recovery that returned more than $1 million to the city.

Criminal/prosecution coordination: Deputy City Attorney Laura Hemmler summarized the criminal division’s workload and process improvements. The division handled 7,760 citations in 2025, with 4,889 arraignments and about 445 pretrial conferences; prosecutors prepared 142 bench trials and 30 jury trials (fewer were actually tried). Hemmler said complexity is increasing because evidence sets (body-worn camera footage, reports) have grown, and that the office moved to Axon Justice to centralize evidence and case management.

Risk, claims and safety programs: Drew Shively, insurance and risk program director, said the risk team (four staff, with a fifth position planned) secured insurance coverage protecting more than $317 million in city assets across 23 lines of coverage, adjusted 465 property/casualty claims and handled 94 workers' compensation reports. Shively said subrogation and restitution work returned about $250,000 to the city in 2025 and described a recovery of nearly $100,000 from a contractor after sewer‑main damage.

Council questions and follow-up: Councilmembers asked for clarification on pie‑chart labels and departmental allocations, sought updates on Axon’s impact on police workflows, and questioned whether legal and risk staffing and tools align with upcoming code implementations such as short‑term rental (STR) enforcement. Morris and deputies committed to follow-ups and noted that some resource needs depend on external mandates or council direction.

Next steps: staff said they will provide requested clarifications on departmental labeling in the charts and continue coordination with police and infrastructure on evidence systems and case handling.