in Houston, Texas

J. Marcus Hill is a Houston lawyer who can see both sides of an issue -- and sometimes earned two paychecks for it.

Hill helped brothers Arthur and Wayne Benfer win a $123,416 judgment from Harris County earlier this year, after the county wanted to take some of their land for a road project. Hill earned a fee worth more than 30 percent of that tab, Wayne Benfer said.

Problem is, Hill had taken a second job starting in January: Serving as the No. 2 man in the Harris County Attorney's Office at a salary of $155,417 a year.

Should a lawyer employed full-time by the county, to do county business, be allowed to also represent other clients -- sometimes in the same courtrooms in which he or she works on behalf of the county? What if the "other clients" include people who are suing, or being sued by, the City of Houston, the Harris County Appraisal District or even Harris County itself?

Texas law says yes. But Harris County Judge Ed Emmett wants the practice banned. And he's willing to go all the way to the statehouse about it.

"If you are a hired employee, you would think that there would be a clear-cut policy," Emmett said. "And if you say, 'It's OK,' then you better be ready to defend it, because some of (us) are going to say that it's not OK."

Hill announced his resignation from the county attorney's office on Wednesday, as Texas Watchdog prepared to publish a story on Hill's employment by both sides in the Benfer case and about Harris County attorneys' legal moonlighting in general.

Hill says he'll continue as "special counsel" for the county attorney's office on an as-needed basis.

He told Texas Watchdog in a phone interview Wednesday that he was leaving his post Nov. 4 because his daughter had chosen to attend the private, more expensive New York University over public colleges in Texas. He also stressed that his outside work for the Benfers was legal under state law.

The case in question was settled before he ever came to the county attorney's office, he said. "But it takes so long for the paperwork to flow through that we finally, actually had to sign off on (the) final, final paperwork in 2009."

Besides, “state law says you can work here" -- for the county, in other words -- "and take care of your private practice," Hill said. "That’s what state law says."

The Benfer case had been filed in 2007 in Harris County Civil Court-at-Law Number 4, but records show that there were at least three hearings and one conference in the case in 2009 -- after Hill signed on to the county job. The Benfer brothers felt the county offered them less than a fair price for 4.5 acres of agricultural land near Spring that had been in their family for a century. The county wanted to take the land by eminent domain.

“We hired him because he had represented a neighbor of ours,” Wayne Benfer said. The neighbor liked Hill, and Hill carries a good reputation as a lawyer. And besides, "he didn’t work for the county when we hired him.”

Hill also said told Texas Watchdog that, on his first day on the job, he filed papers with one of the county attorney's division chiefs disclosing that he had potential conflicts in five pending cases against the county -- "two of them have settled and three of them, I'm farming out ... Anything that ever comes across our desk on any of those five cases ... (People) can't talk to me about those."

Aside from the Benfers, Hill continued to represent other clients from his private practice, Hill & Hill, while also working full-time for the county.

On Sept. 4, records show Hill filed a challenge of an appraisal in the 55th District Court on behalf of Midtown Properties. The foe is the Harris County Appraisal District, which, while not a county agency, is overseen by a board that includes members appointed by the Harris County Commissioners Court. At issue in the case is the value of a piece of property for taxation purposes.

"That's not even (Harris) County," Hill said. "I have a waiver of conflict on that from the appraisal district. Because we don't represent the appraisal district. The appraisal district has its own lawyers ... It's not even a county body, it has its own lawyers and we do not represent them. So there's no conflict there."

As first assistant in the county attorney's office, Hill was a political appointee, brought in by newly elected County Attorney Vince Ryan on Jan. 1. This was Hill's third stint with the county attorney's office.

Ryan did not return a call for comment to his office.

Hill's county pay rate was $74.72 an hour. Among his other area of expertise, Hill also lists his firm as available to handle mediation cases in the federal courts in the Southern District of Texas at a rate of $1,250 a day.

Continued on ...
Page 2: Local judges sought ban on moonlighting county attorneys, Emmett says
Page 3: County attorney's office says ethics policy does not apply to them

Gavel photo by flickr user KeithBurtis, used via the Creative Commons license.

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