Glendora Ranked 65th in Legal Fees Among L.A. County Cities

Glendora ranked 65th among 88 cities in Los Angeles County for the amount of money spent per capita on attorney fees, according to a study by the Los Angeles Times.

The ranking was contained in a database resulting from a one-year project by the Times as it investigated the effect of legal costs on city budgets.

The Times found that Glendora spent $10 per capita on city attorney’s fees annually, or a total of $515,953, 1 percent of the city’s budget.

City Manager Chris Jeffers said the time frame sampled in the Times articles was "a very active time with labor negotiations as [the city] worked and obtained significant employee concessions..." 

It is unclear, however, if the numbers in the chart includes the Redevelopment Agency lawsuit by Los Angeles County against Glendora that ran from 2006 to 2010.

Overall, at­tor­neys' fees con­sume less than 1 percent of the 2010 budgets in nearly half the county’s cit­ies, an av­er­age of about $25 per res­id­ent. But a hand­ful of cit­ies spend three to four times that much, the Times found.

Jeffers credited city staff and City Attorney Wayne Leech for keeping legal costs low. However, he cautioned against making "simple comparisons" of cities' legal costs as they are not "apples to apples."

"I realize that our costs are very low no matter what and that is good in anyone’s book," said Jeffers.  "I just don’t want to go touting we are better at something without being fair to some who may very well have a unique situation."

La Canada Flintidge was No. 30, spending $24 per capita. Glendale spent $17 per capita, while San Marino spent $10, according to The Times database.

Check out the Times’ full database here.