Joint Defense Agreement Outline

1. Parties likely to operate jointly on tasks will enter into a joint defense agreement at the beginning of each fiscal year. 1

2. The agreement will be approved by each city/town council and the county board of supervisors. The agreement will include the following terms:

a. A general, prospective waiver of conflict of interest allowing one attorney (the “Lead Attorney”) selected from a panel of defense attorneys maintained by AMRRP and ACIP to represent all the parties to the joint defense agreement.2

b. The Administrators for AMRRP and ACIP would identify a panel of defense attorneys. The number of attorneys in the panel would vary on the availability, responsiveness and efficiency of defense attorneys retained by each of the risk pools.

c. The general, prospective waiver would be updated annually if and when the parties decide to renew the agreement. The waiver would be subject to revocation, which must be affirmatively accomplished each time a specific claim is received. (See Subparagraph f below).

d. When a party to a joint defense agreement receives a notice of claim, the receiving party will notify the Administrator for the risk pool in which the party receiving notice is a member. The Administrator receiving such notice would then notify the other risk pool Administrator.

e. Upon receipt of the claim, the claim adjusters for each of the risk pools would meet to discuss the claim. If the adjusters agree that one of the risk pools has greater exposure than the other, then the risk pool with the greater exposure would select an attorney from the defense attorney panel. If the adjusters are unable to agree that one of the risk pools has greater exposure than the other, or if the adjusters agree that the risk pools have equal exposure, then the attorney will be selected by the Administrator for each risk pool on a rotating basis. The selected attorney would then represent all the parties to the joint defense agreement in the matter.

1 For the purposes of this outline the only joint tasks will be SWAT exercises and Drug Task Force operations.

2 For matters only involving AMRRP, the attorney would be selected solely by the AMRRP Administrator, and for matters only involving ACIP, the attorney would be selected solely by the ACIP Administrator. f. Within thirty days following receipt of the claim, each of the parties to the joint defense agreement must notify the other parties if the party desires to rescind the general conflict waiver given at the beginning of each fiscal year. A failure to notify would leave the prior, annual waiver in effect. During that thirty day period, the Administrators for each of the risk pools would undertake an investigation to determine if the Administrators believe the matter could be represented by one attorney without the prospect of a conflict. If either of the Administrators believes a conflict is likely, the joint defense would not proceed. The attorney selection process would be established in a document separate from the document entered into by the participating governments.

3. Other Matters to be Included in Joint Defense Agreement

a. Preserving confidentiality of materials and information exchanged. b. Allowing for the sharing of information and materials. c. Acknowledging that there is no independent attorney-client privilege between the parties to the agreement and the Lead Attorney d. Providing for a process allowing a party to withdraw from the Joint Defense Agreement upon notice so that substitute counsel could be retained.