Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Utah Attorney General-elect Derek Brown says he hopes to modernize the office by incorporating AI, other technology
- Brown's 40-person transition team, including experts across political spectrums, is reviewing office operations for efficiency.
- Brown highlights Utah's shifting legal landscape due to international firms' presence, impacting salaries and attorney availability.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Attorney General-elect Derek Brown takes office Monday, but since winning the election in November he had been working with a transition team to prepare for the job.
"We've got a team of about 40 volunteers that have all agreed to be part of the transition, and they're experts in different areas, all having something to do with the attorney general's office," Brown told KSL.com on Friday.
The transition team was given access to the Utah Attorney General's Office, where they were able to conduct interviews with the hundreds of attorneys and staff to better understand the operations.
Local sheriffs and police chiefs, including Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera, West Jordan Police Chief Ken Wallentine, Weber County Sheriff Ryan Arbon and Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby helped with criminal investigations. Attorney Greg Skordas, a Democrat who ran for the seat in 2020, was named co-chair of the transition team and helped with the criminal prosecution review.
"Having people really across the political spectrum," Brown said, "I think that helps create different viewpoints, and it also gives them a chance to help me know what we can do better from their perspective."
Other members of the group include former state representative V. Lowry Snow and Timothy Hawkes, and outgoing Utah State Auditor John Dougall.
"(Dougall) has been perhaps the most vocal and effective engine of creating government efficiency that the state has ever had," according to Brown. "Having him sends a message that we are looking carefully for efficiencies and ways to streamline the office and make it stronger and better run."
When asked what fiscal goals the office has, especially when deciding which of the current office's numerous lawsuits to continue, Brown said, "For me the hallmark is going to be: What is the nexus with Utah? Is there some benefit to the state of Utah? Because everything we do expends resources, and I want to make sure, if we're expending any resources in the office, there's a reason why we're doing it, and it is a benefit to the state."
Shifting legal landscape
"The reality is, the legal market in Utah is completely changing. It is different now than it was five years ago, and so we have to adjust," Brown said. Part of his campaign focused on modernizing the office to keep up with the private sector.
A large reason for the changes, according to Brown, is the new presence of large international law firms, "firms that five years ago you would have never seen in Utah, are now here."
Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm where Brown worked right out of law school, opened an office in Salt Lake City in 2022. The international behemoth Kirkland and Ellis opened an office in 2021 and has grown to over 100 attorneys locally, according to its website.
"That's crazy huge, because those lawyers have to come from somewhere, yeah, where are they coming from? And then you got to fill in those holes. And how do they get filled in? And that has a ripple effect through the whole, just the whole legal system," Brown said.
"When you have these major firms that are now a presence in this market — that impacts salaries, it impacts availability and impacts supply and demand, and that all impacts the attorney general's office, and in a way that it didn't five years ago."
Luckily, Brown says that during his "top-to-bottom" review, he has been "really impressed with the quality of the attorneys in the office. There are 280 attorneys. ... They're very skilled at what they do, and they're dedicated, and a lot of them could make more in the private sector than in the office, and they're there because they're committed, and they're good public servants."
When asked what challenges he hopes to tackle, Brown said he wants to incorporate new technology into the office, specifically artificial intelligence.
"I think there is a lot we can do technologically to compete with and modernize, compete with some of these larger firms that have come into the market and to modernize the office," he said. "A few years ago, the mentality was that if you are using AI, maybe you're committing malpractice. The shift now in the legal mindset is, if you're not using AI, maybe you're committing it because it's so critical to the way that we now live and research and write. "
"The bottom line is, there's a lot of modernization that is taking place, that needs to take place, and what's occurring in the private sector, I want to incorporate it into the office," Brown said
The inauguration ceremony for elected officials will take place Wednesday at Eccles Theater and be broadcast on PBS.
