The Experts Who Weren't

For a couple of years now I've wondered about the legal representation the County has received from Duane Morris, a high priced Chicago law firm.  Every action we've had before the Health Facilities Planning Board has been surrounded in crisis.  It seems like nothing gets done in a timely fashion and more than once we've had to contact our legislators to have them intervene in an attempt to get us on an agenda to deal with a particular issue.  My lack of faith in Duane Morris was always tempered by the fact that I knew they had to deal with the inept pair of Inman and Beckett who are perpetually behind on facility issues at the County.

However, I also knew some attorneys who did HFPB work and they weren't familiar with Duane Morris in this context.  An employee of the HFPB also expressed doubt about their level of expertise.  Unfortunately, the HFPB doesn't keep a list of which attorneys represent which clients in front of the Board. 

I was going to ignore this because I just don't have limitless amounts of time, but when I saw that the County is going to shell out another ten grand to Duane Morris for legal services to defend us because they didn't know the HFPB rules, I couldn't stand it.  So I got the transcripts of the meetings from the HFPB in 2002, the year prior to the nursing home project starting.  It seemed reasonable that if we were looking for an "expert" who was familiar with the procedures of the HFPB that they would likely have appeared at some point in front of the board.  Those transcripts can be viewed in the links below.

There is no reference to Duane Morris at any meeting of the Health Facilities Planning Board in 2002.  45 different cases featured representations by the following 12 law firms:  Arnstein and Lehr; Bell Boyd and Lloyd; Chuhak and Tecson; Foley and Lardner; Freeborn and Peters; Hinshaw and Culbertson; Ross and Hardies; Sidley and Austin; Sonnenschein, Nath and Resenthal; Sorling, Northrup; Ungaretti and Harris; Winston and Strawn.  Many people will recognize many of these firms as highly capable and well connected politically. 

Since we hired Duane Morris, they have hired an attorney from HFPB who has assisted us so their bona fides in this area have improved, but it appears to me that when we hired them they had no business getting our business. 

Duane Morris does have expertise in health care law, but there is no evidence that the expertise stretches to this particular area.  I should also note that Duane Morris could have represented people in 2002 but not appeared in front of the Board.  I'd welcome a list of clients that Duane Morris had prior to picking up Champaign County.