THE LAW Masochist Wanted

ASK ALMOST ANYONE ABOUT DALLAS ClTY Attorney Sam Lindsay-a sitting judge, a member of the city council he serves, or an opposing lawyer he’s thrashed in court- and you can predict the response.

First comes the gush of praise. It’s dished up in warm, heaping portions and ladled out with words like “integrity,” “intelligence,” “character,” and “talent.”

Then the spigot abruptly shuts off. There’s a pause. Then comes the punch line: “You couldn’t pay me enough to do that job,”

The discussion quickly turns to the Cine-mark debacle. The bruising battle over the developer’s efforts to turn a roughed-up old eyesore of a Kmart into Tinseltown, an extravagant 18-screen multiplex cinema, has become a symbol of Lindsay’s four-year reign as city attorney. Regarding Cinemark, Lindsay gave the council members what legal experts say is the right advice: You don’t have a legal leg to stand on if you try to block this project. An 8-7 majority rejected it, showering multimillion-dollar lawsuits on the city and themselves and leaving many citizens grumbling that the city attorney’s office had blown it again.

Far from blowing it, Lindsay was dead on the legal mark. When a judge agreed, the council in April voted to settle the case, which cost the city-more than $5 million. The lesson? Had just one more council member followed Lindsay’s counsel, Dallas would have saved millions.

But that lesson may well get lost in the post-settlement spin control. There is a lingering feeling among residents, fanned by certain politicians, that the city attorney’s office is to blame both for the lawsuits and the settlement. Domingo Garcia, mayor pro tern at the time and one of the council members who voted against Cinemark, could still be heard barking after the settlement, saying that the city should have tried this dog of a case all the way to the U,S. Supreme Court. As the legal bills mounted and the inevitable mega-verdict came in against the city, who would have been hung out to dry?

You guessed it.

And so the refrain goes. Sam Lindsay: great lawyer, impossible job.



The Dallas City Council, a constant swIrl of crisscrossing political currents, is the city attorney s sole client. That makes what should be a plum of a legal job seem so rotten.

Yet Lindsay, against all odds, is doing just fine. As he begins his fifth year on the job. he has dazzled Mayor Ron Kirk, city manager John Ware, and, most importantly, the city council, providing Dallas with what municipal law experts say is some of the finest legal representation in Texas. He gives sound counsel and he’s a courtroom star. He runs a lean office and sets a businesslike tone with his hard-working, no-nonsense style. Above all, he’s steered the office free of political entanglements-and that’s the key to his success. Even his courtroom opponents say they’d rather lose to Lindsay than defeat a lesser lawyer.

“Sam is an excellent lawyer,” says Mike Daniel, who has spent years battling die city on matters such as single-member-district voting and public-housing desegregation. “He’s also a good man, a decent human being in a position that historically has had in it some of the meaner bastards in city government.”

Which is not to say Lindsay has no critics. Media members are quick to rip him for what they say is his office’s role in the city’s excessive secretiveness, especially when it comes to keeping sensitive documents from prying reporters’ clutches in high-profile matters like the machinations over a new sports arena. And they say Lindsay’s personal penchant for privacy-and his unmistakable distrust of reporters-makes it bard for them to do their jobs.

But such criticisms are less important to Lindsay than the judgment of his difficult client, the 15 politicians who make up the Dallas City Council. While some current and former council members (along with some business leaders) believe that Lindsay is too conservative-“a negative obstructionist” whose “no, no, no” attitude impedes growth- most are quick to sing the praises of a lawyer who eschews politics.

“He has an excellent relation with the city council and that’s a tough job,” says former council member and lawyer Glenn Box. “There are 15 personal agendas. It’s a very, very difficult task to keep them happy.”

Lindsay’s client-centered approach and natural wariness have helped him keep a surprisingly low profile for such a high-profile job. Stationed at the busy intersection of law and politics, he is fierce in his determination that the two never mix on his watch. As first assistant city attorney vying against 130 other applicants in the wake of the ouster of his predecessor, Analeslie Muncy, he told the council he would not allow the office to become a scapegoat lor anyone’s political agenda.

” I cold them if you want a politician, you have die wrong person,” Lindsay says. “If you want a lawyer who cuts it straight down the middle, you have the right person.”

This approach helps Lindsay keep his footing when things get slippery, as in those rare instances when politics trumps law-e.g., Cinemark. Although Lindsay would be justified in gloating or dispensing I-told-you-so’s, he characteristically sidesteps the politics of the case.

” I don’t have a dog in that fight,” Lindsay says.

Besides the nature of the client, the city attorney’s job holds other ulcer-building difficulties. Resources are tight and the workload is staggering. The office’s 72 lawyers handle everything under the sun, including some 900 active pieces of civil litigation that cover the waterfront: from slip-and-fall cases to civil-rights class actions to police brutality cases to employment discrimination to eminent domain. The office reviews all city contracts, handles hundreds of open-records requests, and prosecutes thousands of minor criminal matters. City attorneys also are barraged daily with requests for on-the-fly legal advice from department heads who are far quicker to pick up the phone to consult a lawyer than are private citizens who pay by the hour.

Moreover, the office historically has suffered from high turnover, which is not unusual in government. The money paid to young lawyers isn’t comparable with die private sector, yet the experience is golden, making them quite marketable. The exodus irks Lindsay.

“Frankly speaking,” he says, “I’m a little tired of it. I end up fattening up frogs for another snake.”



LINDSAY GREW UP AS ONE OF 10 CHILDREN on the family farm 8 miles west of Beeville in the coastal bend northwest of Corpus Christi. After law school at the University of Texas, he started at the very bottom of the litigation ladder, prosecuting traffic cases, petty thefts, and run-of-the-mill misdemeanors. But he rose quickly and soon was supervising 24 litigators doing just about every kind of trial matter imaginable save divorce.

Though he’s known as a top litigator, Lindsay’s low-key style masks his aggressiveness and effectiveness. One opponent, well-known Mesquite civil-rights lawyer Douglas Larson, has squared off against Lindsay seven times and lost every trial. He says his flamboyant style contrasts badly with Lindsay’s “aw shucks” approach, which jurors eat up.

“He’s one helluva lawyer,” Larson says.

His record bears that out. Lindsay has handied some J00 legal problems for the city and tried more than 60 cases, losing just a handful. He’s board-certified in trial law, an unusual accomplishment for a city attorney, and he’s a member of the prestigious Inns of Court, an elite imitation-only group of top-flight lawyers,

Lindsay, who has saved the city millions in the courtroom, also has established some landmarks that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. He successfully defended city efforts to deal with a homeless shantytown under the I-30 overpass near downtown, and defended the first teen curfew ordinance in the country all the way to the Supreme Court, establishing a model for other cities.

Although Lindsay is well paid at $142,426, the highest salary of any city attorney of Texas’ big cities, he could make much more in the private sector. But he cites other rewards, like the mother who told him the teen curfew may have saved her son’s life when it kept him from accompanying two friends who were shot during an evening outing.

“Those kinds of statements mean more to me than any amount of money you can put on the table,” he says. “You can’t get that in the private sector. You can make a difference here.”

But what of the persistent criticisms of the office? The media continue to fault Lindsay for his handling of information requests, and TV reporters are livid over his policy of refusing on-air interviews,

“The general approach if the information is politically sensitive is obstructionist and uncooperative,” says Tim Dickey of Channel 5. “Does that help us inform die public? No. The attitude is we have an unfair agenda that is not in the interest of die city attorney’s office. It’s his nature. He doesn’t trust us.”

To Lindsay, however, it all comes down to serving his unusual client. “I’m not out to make the media’s job harder,” he says. “They’ll ask questions when I’m not sure a response serves my clients interests. It’s nothing personal.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers also fault Lindsay, citing a pattern in his client’s failure to deliver evidence in certain cases. In February, a state judge lowered the boom on the city, levying a $125,000 fine for failing to turn up a linchpin document in a job-harassment suit brought by a former city worker. And Dallas personal-injury lawyer Windle Turley recently pummeled Lindsay over the unavailability of information in a high-profile case involving two women killed in a crash with a speeding cop.

Both the judge and Turley noted what they say is the city’s dismal track record for preserving and producing relevant information, a record that has led to court sanctions several times over the last decade, including one well-known case involving the death of Addison policeman Ron Cox at the hands of a Dallas officer during a botched drug raid. Cox’s family sued the city, and the proceedings grew ugly, with allegations that police were covering up and possibly tampering with evidence. A judge slammed the city with a $93,000 fine and an order striking the city’s pleadings-a civil death penalty that handed the case to the plaintiffs.

Critics continue to point to the case as evidence of the dty*8 shortcomings in handling litigation. Turley is especially harsh. “Either the office is understaffed or they don’t pay enough for experienced people to deal with trial matters in a competent way.”

Others, however, fault not Lindsay but the council and Lindsay’s staff. Lindsay quickly cashiered the lawyer in the job-harassment case (though he says the firing was for unacceptable performance and had nothing to do with the judge’s sanctions), and he takes umbrage when people speak of a “pattern” of ineptitude. Is it really a pattern, he asks, when you’re talking about three or four instances over 10 years in an office that’s handled thousands of legal matters in that time span?

As for the Cox case, Lindsay’s opposing counsel in the matter, Edwin E. Wright III, who went to law school with Lindsay, defends the city attorney. “Sam did everything he personally could to get compliance,” he says. “He got caught in some bad facts.”

Lindsay’s current two-year term is up in October, and friends say he’s discussed leaving. He freely admits he won’t retire as Dallas city attorney. At 44, he has some big earning years ahead of him and three daughters approaching college age. Some say his legal abilities, conservatism, and excellent writing make him a strong candidate for the federal bench.

For now, however, Lindsay is committed to serving his hydra-headed client-as long as there aren’t too many Cinemarks,

“If that becomes a common occurrence,” he says, “then it’s time for me to head for the hills.”

DALLAS ON TRI

COPS

Davis v. City of Dallas: Class action suit filed in 1976 against the city by hundreds of police department applicants alleging gender and race discrimination. A court ruled against the city, exposing it to an estimated $60 million in liability. Lindsay’s office tried and settled the individual damage claims and limited the city’s liability to less than $1.4 million. (Last claims settled in 1994.)



PUBLIC HOUSING

Walker v. Dallas Housing Authority: Tenants in 1988 challenged the city for discriminatory housing practices. The city entered into a consent decree in 1990 agreeing to take a wide range of actions, at an estimated cost of $118 million over an eight-year period, including improving public housing developments and surrounding neighborhoods, providing more police protection, economic development, recreation for young residents, etc.



THE HOMELESS

Johnson v. City of Dallas: Case filed in 1994 by homeless persons challenging the city’s right to regulate sleeping and camping in public and aggressive panhandling. In 1995, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in die city’s favor, paving the way for enforcement of the homeless ordinance.



SEX SHOPS

MDII v. City of Dallas: First Amendment case filed in 1993 challenging a city ordinance attempting to close loopholes in regulations regarding sexually oriented businesses. A lower federal court held that the process used by the city to close the loopholes was unconstitutional; the city s appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending. A victory would make it easier for the city to regulate sex shops that skirt existing ordinances by claiming the rules do not apply to them. The case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.



KID CURFEWS

Qutb v. Strauss: Constitutional challenge to a 1992 city ordinance establishing a curfew for teenagers. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ordinance in 1993, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal. The curfew law has been widely hailed as an effective tool against teen crime and a model for other cities.