<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default">Seun,</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">I do not know how you concluded, based on cost alone, that we did not do a good job of strategizing how/when to use outside counsel, or that counsel costs were unduly high. To the contrary, significant amounts of (unpaid) time have been spent within the WG on deciding when and what outside counsel should do. Of course, we can always strive to do better, and indeed, adjustments have been made a few times over the course of our work with counsel to refine our methods, and I'm sure adjustments will continue to be made. </div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">I actually think we have done a good job all along, and the cost reflects the amount of work that needed to be done. Nothing more. I don't think there's any need to "rewrite history," because that would imply that we failed in some significant respect. I don't think that's the case, and I don't think that the cost alone is any evidence of that.</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Seun, to further tax your imagination, if I billed for all of my time spent dealing with ICANN matters, it would easily exceed $100,000 a month over the last several months. (In fact, I bill for almost none of my time spent on ICANN matters, but that's beside the point.) That said, I am keenly aware that we all live and work in different economies and that what seems proportionate in one economy may seem disproportionate (high or low) in other economies. (For instance, I noted that a $10 cab ride in Buenos Aires would have cost about $30 in New York City.) Nonetheless, in the economy where this work needs to be done, and for the quality of services that we need, this is not a disproportionate amount.</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Finally, I would caution us against being unduly timid about using counsel when and where needed, because that is the surest path toward a suboptimal result, which would be a waste of time, effort and money for all of us.</div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default">Greg</div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jun 25, 2015 at 5:42 PM, Seun Ojedeji <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com" target="_blank">seun.ojedeji@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class=""><p dir="ltr">With due respect James, I am in no way belittling the work of legal council. I am rather wondering how we as a community recognising this huge cost did not better strategize on how/when to engage external council. The amount that has been spent on all participants of the ccwg and cwg(for remote/physical meetings) would seem to be competing with the total cost of legal advice (perhaps legal would even be more).</p>
<p dir="ltr">The deed has been done and we can't rewrite history. My comment is targeted more on the fact that we need to think of how we engage legal more efficiently going forward.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For the record, when Greg said top notch council are expensive, 500k monthly is just beyond my imagination!</p>
</span><p dir="ltr">Regards</p><span class="im HOEnZb">
<p dir="ltr">sent from Google nexus 4<br>
kindly excuse brevity and typos.</p>
</span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_quote">On 25 Jun 2015 18:23, "James Gannon" <<a href="mailto:james@cyberinvasion.net" target="_blank">james@cyberinvasion.net</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>Our legal advice has been critical to our process and Sidley have been crucial to our successes.</div>
<div>I think we should be thanking them for their service, and yes top notch legal services are not cheap.</div>
<div>It is most certainly something that I have no issue with the community exercising its prudence over however lets not limit ourselves in any way to engage with our counsel.</div>
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<div>-James</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span><<a href="mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org" target="_blank">cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org</a>> on behalf of Seun Ojedeji<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Thursday 25 June 2015 18:15<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a href="mailto:cwg-stewardship@icann.org" target="_blank">cwg-stewardship@icann.org</a>"<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[CWG-Stewardship] Legal cost reality<br>
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<p dir="ltr">Hi,</p>
<p dir="ltr">I hope those who want to always push issues to external legal advice would appreciate the need to be strategic and prudent about this. Over 500,000USD already spent on Sidley is definitely not what we like ICANN to keep spending it's resources
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<p dir="ltr">Regards</p>
<p dir="ltr">sent from Google nexus 4<br>
kindly excuse brevity and typos.</p>
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