City Attorney-elect Pete Holmes sent a letter last Wednesday to the city's legal department, which currently reports to City Attorney Tom Carr, to assuage fears of widespread firing under the incoming Holmes administration. “No staffing changes will be made until I have had an opportunity to meet with each and every one of you to learn more about you and the jobs you perform,” Holmes wrote. (Full letter after the jump.)

But starting today, Holmes says he will begin meeting with the 150 lawyers and staff who prosecute in the Seattle Municipal Court and defend the city against lawsuits. On the campaign trail, Holmes said he would consider removing domestic-violence advocates from the city attorney’s office—to make their advice autonomous of prosecutors' agendas—and he bandied around the idea that a Mark Sidran-era lawyer had been there too long. "I was told all of them expected to lose their jobs if I were elected," he says. However, Holmes insists that he argued for “strengthening the independence of domestic-violence advocates, never decreasing their number.” He says, “There is only one person who will go for sure, and that is Tom."

But Holmes confirms some of Carr’s staff will be shown the door. “There will be departures, but I will not name them until I have met with them,” Holmes says. Potentially on the chopping block are the people who worked closely with the Carr in rejecting liquor licenses of upstanding businesses, cracking down on popular bars, and folks with so much as a pinky toe in Operation Sobering Thought—all Carr endeavors Holmes campaigned against. Holmes, says, “I have committed to meeting each and every one of them to learn what they do, and hear their suggestions for improvements before I make any changes.”

The meetings begin today in Holmes’s new transition office on the sixth floor of City Hall. Also on today’s agenda, Holmes will meet with Mayor-elect Mike McGinn and King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. They will discuss how to defend against an impending challenge to the city’s gun ban in parks and community centers, a challenge to losing federal stimulus money for work on Spokane Street, and ways the City Attorney’s office could emulate some of the structure at the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office.

Holmes will announce his transition team after Thanksgiving and he will take office in January. While he won’t name any of the people who are getting fired before he takes office in January—“Nobody deserves that,” he says—some folks will fare better than others. Personally, I’d be cleaning out my desk if I were Tienney Milnor.