There are several requirements in the Community system for submitting an RtR and a summary is provided below. a. Designation of Agency Contact and Responsible Attorney Agencies must designate an individual employed by the agency to act as the agency contact and handle all matters and correspondence with the OAG related to the RtR and any resulting contract. If the agency contact is not an attorney, then the agency must also designate a responsible attorney, employed by the agency’s Office of General Counsel, or otherwise representing the agency, who must be familiar with all aspects of the RtR and maintain familiarization with any resulting OCC throughout the life of the contract. Agencies must ensure the information for the designated agency contact and/or the responsible attorney is accurate as long as the RtR is in process and any resulting contract is in place. b. University Systems and Institutions of Higher Education Requirement for SystemWide Contracts University systems and institutions of higher education may not submit separate RtRs on behalf of the system’s or institution’s individual member schools or universities. More specifically, the system must submit its RtR(s) where the system is the contracting party, and the terms of the resulting contract encompass the system and all its member schools together. Importantly, this requires the system to request the entire amount of the proposed limitation of liability (maximum contract value) applicable to the system and all its member schools in the RtR. c. Start and end dates for Outside Counsel Contracts The requested start date for an OCC may be a date in the future, or any date from the date of the RtR’s submission to the first day of the calendar month in which the RtR was submitted. For example, an RtR submitted April 30th may have a start date of April 1st, but an RtR submitted May 1st may only have a May 1st or later start date. Best practice is to submit RtRs well in advance of a requested start date to allow for complete processing of the request including, if necessary, resolution of any issues with the submission. Any request for a start date earlier than the first day of the month the RtR is submitted would only be permitted if the OAG, in its sole discretion, determined that unusual and compelling circumstances exist. Requested end dates may be any date within the current fiscal biennium (for example, August 31, 2023). If outside counsel services are needed beyond the end of the biennium, then an RtR for a new contract must be submitted. For certain litigation OCCs, there is a potential exception to allow the OCC to extend to the end of the litigation matter, as determined by the agency in consultation with the OAG. Where the date is indeterminate due to ongoing litigation, it may be acceptable to submit an end date for one or more bienniums in the future (e.g., 8/31/2029 or 8/31/2031).
