Rogers calls for reorganization of legal office

Friday, Aug. 6, 2004 | 9:48 a.m.

A restructuring of the higher education system's legal office is being proposed in the wake of allegations by the attorney general's office that the Board of Regents violated the state open-meeting law.

The reorganization being proposed by Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers calls for an outside attorney to take over as chief counsel of legal affairs, a new post that will serve as a legal liaison between the University and Community College System of Nevada and the outside world as well as overseeing the system's attorneys, Rogers said Thursday.

The chief counsel will be responsible for communications with the attorney general's office and making sure that the open-meeting law is followed, Rogers said.

"I think that I need a chief counsel who is really attuned to the outside world," Rogers said, "who is really attuned to the ... the political and business and social structure of the state."

The change means that the current honcho of the system's legal office, General Counsel Tom Ray, will no longer be in charge, Rogers said. Ray landed the Board of Regents in its current open-meeting law dilemma when he refused to release a copy of Rogers' employment contract in May. The attorney general's office ruled July 26 that the contract should be been released when requested.

Ray and the six assistant attorneys currently under him all would be reassigned under the reorganization, Rogers said.

Several will serve as an attorney for one of the system's institutions and will move to campus offices to provide better legal counsel at the institutional levels, Rogers said.

Under the current structure, there is no attorney assigned to any of the institutions, Rogers said.

"I just think the universities ought to have in-house counsel," Rogers said. "I think it's just more convenient. I don't think it substantially changes anything.

"It's just nice to be able to walk next door and talk to your lawyer, instead of calling across town and taking potluck of who's here."

According to the two memos Rogers sent to the regents, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Nevada, Reno, will each receive their own campus attorney. The Community College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College will share an attorney, who will be stationed at one of CCSN's campuses, and all of the other community colleges and Desert Research Institute will share an attorney who will be stationed in Reno.

At least two attorneys will also be assigned to the chancellor's office, Rogers said.

The plan does mean hiring one or two new attorneys, Rogers said, but he had not established how much that might cost. The individual institutions may be asked to bear all or part of the cost of their individual lawyers.

All of the attorneys will report directly to the presidents or their institutions but will also be supervised by the chief counsel for the system, Rogers said.

Regents are scheduled to discuss the proposed reorganization at their Aug. 19-20 meeting at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. The regents who could be reached Thursday said they wanted to review the proposal more thoroughly before commenting.

Regent Bret Whipple said he thought the plan was a "good starting point" but that some of the details needed to be worked out. Much of Rogers' plan is similar to an old structure UCCSN used, and Whipple said he wants to know why regents saw fit to change to the current structure before he votes to change it back.

Whipple, however, agreed for the need for change.

"The genesis of this reorganization or restructuring is the criticism leveled against the Board of Regents by the attorney general," Whipple said. "It's not so much a legal matter but a policy issue, in that we want a policy where everything (not legally prohibited) is open."

The plan has won some initial praise from at least one outside critic. Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, who last week threatened to establish a bill mandating that the attorney general's office serve as legal counsel for the Board of Regents, said he thought the plan "was a step in the right direction."

Townsend said he had a lot of respect for and confidence in the chancellor, and "if he brings us something that he think will work, and works on it with the attorney general, then we will look real hard at it" before taking other action.

Ray was not immediately available for comment.