Happy Beautiful Sunday afternoon! Several years ago, I attended a class sponsored by Thomson Reuters. The attached handout was provided by the person teaching the class. Although clearly designed to provide information on a quality product, the statistical information contained is invaluable to municipal practitioners. Very generally speaking, it highlighted the following: 1. That government attorneys are handling increasingly complex issues. It is estimated that these attorneys are spending approximately six (6) hours per week getting up to speed on these issues. 2. That government attorneys continue to have limited resources. In fact, 81% of those surveyed reported flat or decreased resources. 3. That government attorneys continue to see increasing workloads. It was estimated that 72% anticipate higher workloads in the next two (2). 4. That government attorneys continue to deal with more diverse matters. In fact, the survey revealed that government attorneys worked on an average of 33 UNIQUE MATTERS EVERY WEEK! When I was the City Attorney for Broken Arrow, I attached this flier to a memorandum requesting additional personnel, funding, and resources. It was very helpful in providing a national benchmark that highlighted the complexity of municipal practice. Like most in-house Departments, we were experiencing an increasing workload with a multi-year flat budget. A few months ago, I contacted representatives of Thomson Reuters and requested that they allow me to disseminate this information to you all. They agreed that this was valuable information that could assist you in highlighting to your elected and appointed officials the challenges facing government attorneys. Regardless of whether you are in-house counsel wanting support for additional resources or a contract attorney justifying your billing or rate, communicating the complexity of what we do is important. I hope that you find this information helpful. For those of you that had turnover on your Council or Board, please do not hesitate to let me, Jeff, or Daniel know if you need anything. Beth Anne Childs Beth Anne Childs The Childs Law Firm, PLLC 1015 South Detroit Avenue Tulsa, Oklahoma. 74120 (918) 521-3092