Liheslaturan Guåhan finds that the operations of the Attorney General’s Office are fiscally supported by the revenues of the General Fund and the various special funds of the government of Guam. As such, the Attorney General is expected to provide legal services to those agencies that also are fiscally supported by the tax-base of the government of Guam. Public law and federal law also place mandates on the Office of the Attorney General that include (1) review of all contracts, including those originating from agencies that are fiscally autonomous from the tax-base of the government of Guam; (2) review of contracts that are funded by federal sources; and (3) most recently, review of all procurement documents where the cost of the procurement is expected to exceed Five Hundred Thousand Dollars ($500,000).

I Liheslatura further finds that such mandates do not constitute a need for the Office of the Attorney General to dedicate an attorney to each autonomous agency or federal program to fulfill the Office’s statutory obligations to those agencies and programs but, rather, maintain a pool of staff attorneys to perform such reviews as the need arises. I Liheslatura further finds that the ability to maintain such a pool of qualified attorneys or solicitors is contingent upon the Office of the Attorney General to cover the cost of salaries and overhead for these additional attorneys or solicitors.

I Liheslatura further finds that the private practice of law provides a business model that may be utilized by the Office of the Attorney General to recover the cost of providing statutorily mandated services for agencies and programs that are not supported by the tax-base of the government of Guam. This model includes billable hours for legal services and legal cost billing for definable external expenses, such as postage, copying, notary fees and process service. In recent hearings before I Liheslaturan Guåhan, witnesses have testified that private law firms currently bill their clients from Two Hundred Dollars ($200) to Three Hundred Fifty Dollars ($350) per hour.

It is the intent of I Liheslatura to provide the Office of the Attorney General with the means to recover the cost of providing statutorily mandated services to agencies and programs that are not funded by the General Fund and Special Fund revenues of the
government of Guam.