So, on Day 10 of Petty Watch, we received legal bills from the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. for work done by its corporate counsel, Regina Petty.
However, most of the pertinent details from those documents are missing, including how many hours Petty worked for SEDC each month, and how much she charged for that work.
A recap: Petty’s invoices to SEDC are a matter of public record, because her bills are paid by taxpayers. I put in a request to get copies of those invoices more than a month ago, but didn’t receive anything until today, despite calling Petty’s office every business day last week and this week.
Lawyers generally charge by the hour. When they bill their client, they usually detail each hour’s work they did, so that their client knows what they’re being charged for. But the documents I received from SEDC don’t detail how many hours Petty worked on the matters she billed SEDC for, nor do they show how much she charged the public agency each month for her work.
Petty’s legal bills for other public agencies have contained that information. She is also the attorney for two other public agencies, the San Diego Convention Center Corp. and the San Diego County Employees Retirement Account, and I have copies of Petty’s invoices to each of those organizations for the last few years. The number of hours she worked on the matters she billed for is detailed in full in those documents.
So, Petty Watch continues, and will continue until Petty or SEDC provide documents that contain the number of hours Petty worked for the agency on each of the matters she billed for or provide a legal explanation for why the bills don’t contain that information.