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I am considering trying to make this move in the next couple of years. I was wondering if anyone could talk about their individual experiences with the work and especially the hiring process. I am a second year at a midlaw/regional biglaw-size firm that is one of the highest regarded in my state (this is obviously not to brag; I don’t know to what extent local firm prestige will matter here). I am officially a litigator but due to the size of my firm and market I have more crossover experience than would be typical at a larger firm. What should I be doing? Is this something where networking is important, or is it more about the substantive experience, or what? I appreciate any insight.

Looks like I’m going to strike out here but I’m going to bump this once just in case. Anyone know anything here?

Not a current or former city attorney but from my limited experience seems to be mostly who you know and ideally some trial experience.

I'm not sure I would make the jump unless you are comfortable financially and just want a less stressful, 9-5 job. Most of the cases are really low-level ticket cases for speeding, noise violations, etc. I suppose as you get more senior some of the cases in a city-county disputes could be pretty interesting. It also might be slightly helpful in getting into politics assuming you keep up with the networking.

I think, though, that there are city attorneys who do civil stuff?

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I think, though, that there are city attorneys who do civil stuff?

Yeah, NYC at least has several departments that handle civil matters.

I'm currently a city attorney doing civil "stuff" so you can PM me if you have specific questions. I would say though that it's not less stressful than private practice for sure lol

omar1 wrote:I'm currently a city attorney doing civil "stuff" so you can PM me if you have specific questions. I would say though that it's not less stressful than private practice for sure lol

Yeah--my bad, I wasn't try to say you just coast or anything, just that no billable hours would be less stressful than a large law firm to me.

Thanks for the replies, and the postings I have seen have all been for civil/corp/admin law type roles.

Many (most?) cities will utilize outside counsel for litigation. The City Attorney serves more of a general counsel role.

My dad is the CIty Attorney for two small cities/large towns and a number of small towns in a southern state. He was a general practitioner style attorney in one of small cities for years before he was hired as the City Attorney and after he had one city, others started hiring him too. He does no actual litigation, lots of management of outside counsel, some participation in mediations, but mostly it's all civil/administrative work. Highly political although not actually an elected position, tons of networking constantly, he goes to something like 2 Kiwanis and 3 Rotary Club meetings monthly, plus prayer breakfasts.

Anonymous User wrote:My dad is the CIty Attorney for two small cities/large towns and a number of small towns in a southern state. He was a general practitioner style attorney in one of small cities for years before he was hired as the City Attorney and after he had one city, others started hiring him too. He does no actual litigation, lots of management of outside counsel, some participation in mediations, but mostly it's all civil/administrative work. Highly political although not actually an elected position, tons of networking constantly, he goes to something like 2 Kiwanis and 3 Rotary Club meetings monthly, plus prayer breakfasts.

Thanks for the reply. I figured the City Attorney position is highly political, one of the things I am curious about is to what degree that impacts the daily lives of staff city attorneys in large offices. I imagine the answer is probably “it depends.”