Guam - Guam News

Guam - Senator Tom Ada has introduced a bill that aims to lower the cost of legal services for GovGuam.

According to a release, Bill # 344 seeks to "minimize the cost of contracted legal services retained by Government of Guam agencies, public corporations, autonomous agencies and the Mayor's Council."

In the release, Senator Ada is quoted as saying that "a number of agencies that are given the authority to retain legal counsel other than the Attorney General, have spend an excess of $500,00 annually for legal services."

Ada's bill would require those agencies to hire an unclassified in-house legal counsel to attend to the organization's legal matters and limits the annual salary to a maximum of $125,000.

Senator Ada also argues that  "this concept has worked well for both utility agencies on island....In addition to the cost savings provided by this provision, the in-house counsel retained over a period of time is able to develop in-depth expertise specific to that agency."