In this week's paper:
When an officer unlawfully arrests someone, who is that officer's attorney? For the past 40 years, attorneys for police officers have come exclusively from one pricey downtown Seattle law firm: Stafford Frey Cooper.
- Robert Ullman
On average last year, Stafford Frey Cooper charged the city $287 per hour; City Attorney Pete Holmes says city-employed lawyers can do the same job just as well for less than half as much: $102 per hour.
But if Holmes leverages his authority to require cops to use city lawyers—a move that could save the city over $1 million a year—the police guild says they'll take legal action that "could prove very expensive for the city, especially in a tight budget year." Read the hubbub over HERE.
