Saratoga Springs council approves $60,992.65 outside legal bill over objections, amid calls for comptroller review

The Saratoga Springs City Council voted 3–2 on July 2 to approve payment of $60,992.65 to outside law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP to cover invoices tied to an ongoing grand-jury subpoena and related defense work. Council members first moved funds from an "assignment for legal liability" account and approved a related budget amendment to create a funded line for the payment.

The vote followed nearly two hours of debate over whether the city is legally obligated to pay outside counsel under city code and whether the council should first seek guidance from the New York State Comptroller or the attorney general’s office about "reasonableness" standards for reimbursing legal fees. City Attorney David Harper told the council the city has authority under city code section 9-1 and may be obliged to indemnify officers named in the subpoena; he also recommended seeking outside opinions on process going forward.

"The city has the obligation to pay the bill under city code section 9-1," Harper told the council, while noting that determination of reasonableness is a separate question. Commissioner Moran (speaker 4), whose office and deputy are named in the subpoena, defended the decision to hire specialty counsel and the discounted rate he said the firm offered. "$500 an hour is reasonable," Moran said, and added that research cited a $600-per-hour precedent in a prior, high-profile case.

Opponents of immediate payment said the council lacks a defined, local standard for when expensive out-of-area counsel is reasonable and that the council should seek the comptroller's guidance before authorizing spending. "Reasonableness is an objective standard that has to be defined," said Commissioner Golub (speaker 5), urging caution about retroactively applying a standard the city has not yet set.

The procedural steps were split: the council first voted to use $60,992.65 from an existing assignment for legal liability (the assignment balance cited at $195,124 pre-payment), then approved a budget amendment to place the funds in an actionable line; both motions passed. The final motion to pay the Orrick invoices passed 3–2.

Supporters argued that not paying could jeopardize the defense and slow critical discovery and that local counsel in the Capital Region could not provide the specific national cyber- and records-forensics expertise required. "We have made every effort to be as expeditious as we could in response to this, having proper counsel and adequately using the resources we feel we need to defend ourselves," Moran said.

Opponents warned of precedent: without an agreed standard the council could face repeated requests for high hourly rates. Several councilors and the city attorney recommended the council request formal advisory opinions from the state comptroller and attorney general on how to operationalize a reasonableness standard and whether any retroactive review or remedial action would follow an audit.

The council did not adopt a new reasonableness policy at the meeting; members agreed to pursue guidance and a formal local standard for future cases. The council also received a related memo from the city attorney and heard public commentary criticizing the perceived lack of transparency over prior legal spending and urging caps on legal contracts.

Next steps: the council has authorized payment and signaled plans to seek external legal opinions and to draft clearer local procedures and standards for indemnification and attorney-fee reasonableness going forward.