Detroit's top attorney told the City Council last week that there is no conflict of interest in giving what is surely a multimillion-dollar contract to the Jones Day law firm.

We beg to disagree.

Until last month, Detroit's new emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, was a Jones Day partner. Yes, technically, he resigned and surrendered his partnership to take the Detroit job.

But awarding the contract will absolutely reinforce a pervasive suspicion in Detroit that rules exist for "other people" -- not the well-intentioned power brokers trying to put Detroit back together. This is not the message you want to send as the city emerges from the taint of fraud and insider deals during the era of Kwame Kilpatrick Inc.

Orr, state Treasurer Andy Dillon, Gov. Rick Snyder and the city's state-appointed financial review team, as well as elected officials, should avoid any whiff of conflict. That includes no-bid and sole-source contracts. Even before the Jones Day issue arose, some consultants were grousing to learn that other firms had been hired to do work on city restructuring without a bidding process.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...is-ex-employer

Even Crain's knows this is a conflict of interest.