CM-40 - Utilization of Legal Counsel

May 15, 1998

This is a repeat memorandum regarding policy, procedure and utilization of legal counsel by the faculty and other employees of the LSU Health Sciences Center. As you know, the LSU System retains the law firm of Taylor, Porter, Brooks to handle our legal matters. Recently, because of the volume of work a local representative in New Orleans was made available for consultation and assistance to our schools (see enclosure).

There has been a significant utilization of our counsel and a resultant rise in costs in responding to these requests. I find that too many of these consultations are not in keeping with policies and procedures relating to obtaining legal counsel and assistance. Namely: the policy is this must be approved by each department head in the respective schools and thereby forwarded to the dean for subsequent approval with a notification (copy) to my office.

I think it is important for each of the deans of the respective schools to be aware and make their department heads aware, that the majority of these costs will be borne by the requesting agency and not by the Chancellor's office. Exceptions to this will be a mutually agreed upon decision by the dean of the respective school and the Chancellor.

By copy of this memorandum I am requesting all representatives of our system's law firm to be sure that appropriate authorizations have been obtained before responding to any request.

Signed: Mervin L. Trail, M.D. Chancellor

Enclosure

We now have in house legal counsel assigned to the New Orleans campus by the LSU Systems office. As of this date Ms. Kathy Muslow will be available to assist you in those matters you may identify critical for legal counsel. She will be contacting each of you in the immediate future to see how she can best be of assistance.

My one word of caution is that all matters referred to Ms. Muslow be first approved by each of you in your respective schools.