After overspending its budget, Dumfries hires its own attorney

After more than two decades of using attorneys from the law firm of Smith and Davenport, the town of Dumfries has hired its own.

Kristi Caturano, formerly of Smith and Davenport, has started in the part-time position and will work 24 hours a week, either at town hall or representing the town in court.

Town Manager Kimberly Alexander said that town officials did not have any problems or concerns with the representation they had been getting from Smith and Davenport.

"They have been fantastic," she said. "They provided wonderful services, but we only saw them at council meetings or talked to them through phone calls, and sometimes that can be difficult."

The decision to hire the town's own attorney was a financial one, Alexander said.

"This came about after looking at our budget and seeing that we are consistently tens of thousands of dollars over in legal fees," she said.

For example, last fiscal year the town budgeted $100,000 for legal services. It actually spent more than $141,000. This fiscal year it budgeted $80,000.

"We were on track to do the same thing this year with the way we were going," Alexander said.

"It just seemed to make a whole lot more sense to have somebody in here a couple of days [a week] to look over those things," Alexander said.

Caturano has been an attorney with Smith and Davenport for about nine years. While Bob Bendall of the firm has been the Dumfries town attorney of record for years, Caturano has been prosecuting the town's police court cases for the last nine years. Over the past three years she also has been attending council meetings and handling many of the day-to-day legal matters for the town.

"Hiring her provided more of a seamless transition than hiring someone else," Alexander said. "She is already familiar with all of our police officers and their cases and court schedules."

Caturano said she decided to accept the position for a couple of reasons.

"I honestly enjoy working with the town and I knew they were in a serious financial situation and [hiring their own part-time attorney] was something that they were going to have to do," Caturano said.

Caturano said the flexibility of part-time work was appealing. "I have two young children and this makes scheduling a lot easier," she said. It will also allow her to do more volunteer work.

"It just made sense," she said.

Alexander and Caturano said that Bendall has been supportive of the change.

"I cannot say enough good things about Mr. Bendall," Alexander said. "He has been great about all this and very understanding."

Caturano will be paid $80,000 annually.

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached 703-878-8010.