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STORY: The city of Houston may hire private attorney's to represent people arrested by the Houston Police Department in last summer's mass round up of nearly 300 people outside a Kmart shopping center. The police planned the raid to crack down on drag racers, but when no evidence of drag racing was found, they arrested those gathered there anyway on curfew and trespassing violations. The arrests were the subject of intense public criticism. City attorneys said if officers were deficient in the raid, the city would join in a motion to dismiss or set aside the charges. The charges were dropped, and in December, a Harris County grand jury indicted each of the two head officers with five counts of official oppression. Now on Tuesday, City Council is scheduled to consider approving a contract to hire a private law firm to help expunge the arrests from people's records. Conflict of interest prevents the city's attorneys from representing those needing their records expunged because they are already representing Houston in lawsuits stemming from the arrests. If the contract is approved, those arrested will be notified of the private service by mail. This may be a violation of ethics if the letters are sent to those already represented by attorneys with lawsuits against the city: "That's one of the most basic simplest rules of attorney client relationships. And attorney discipline is that an attorney cannot contact someone else's client directly, but through that attorney." Attorney Randall Kallinen sits on the local board of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is representing over sixty clients in lawsuits against the city to be compensated for time in jail, false arrest, false imprisonment, pain and suffering, and embarrassment. He says the city has other motives for moving to hire private counsel.(:15) "I think they never thought they had the ability to do it or they were never seriously going to go through with it, but I think they like the news story and the press. The jury will be taken from people around the area, which the media influences. And furthermore they can also try to maybe introduce it in trial to make it seem they're doing a lot of good things now for the people." The contract was up for a vote this past Tuesday, but was tagged by Councilman Gordon Quan until this coming Tuesday pending a meeting with the city attorney. E-mail Renee Feltz at chickpea_@ziplip.com . This story was broadcast on January 3, 2003.