Philadelphia City Paper cross-posted my report on how the city of Philadelphia is back to square one in its plan to develop an Office of Conflict Counsel to represent criminal defendants and family-court defendants when the Defender Association of Philadelphia, Community Legal Services or the Support Center for Child Advocates is already representing another person in the case. An excerpt:
The city of Philadelphia will not be entering into a contract right away to create an Office of Conflict Counsel after all.
Mayor Michael A. Nutter's press secretary, Mark McDonald, said in an email that the winning bidder did not have the same name in place at the start of the process as at the end of the process, so the contract can't be issued legally.
The City Code requires that the name of the entity initiating the bid process in the eContract Philly system have the same name as the entity with whom the city contracts.
Philadelphia attorney Daniel-Paul Alva's bid appeared to be the winner to start a new Office of Conflict Counsel in Philadelphia.
However, Alva and his former partner on the project, Scott DiClaudio, bid for the conflict-counsel work as Alva & Associates LLC. DiClaudio stepped back from the project in the wake of social-media postings he made. The city said in a statement that Alva is actually "not associated with Alva & Associates," and that his actual firm name is the Law Offices of Daniel P. Alva. The name change means the city cannot contract with Alva at this point.
"In no way does this reflect on the proposal to establish a Conflict Counsel office," McDonald wrote. "The administration is committed to carrying this out. Nor does it reflect on the quality of the proposal from Mr. Alva. But the rules are clear."
The city has to begin the bidding process again from scratch.
Alva wrote in an email that he will resubmit his bid in the new contract process and "hopefully will be chosen again."
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
