Thoughts on Being an Effective Government Attorney: Part III

Don O'Toole is a white man with light brown hair. He is smiling, wearing a dark grey button-down shirt, and standing outside of a grey building.By Don O’Toole

This is the final piece in a series of three posts titled “Thoughts on Being an Effective Local Government Attorney and How to Best Work With Your Local Government Attorney.” Part I was posted on October 10, 2024; part II was posted on January 2, 2025.

5. All applicants are entitled to equivalent due process.

Professor Hornstein at UNC Law School did an awesome job teaching Administrative Law. Of course, we learned the distinctions between substantive and procedural due process. Regarding procedural due process, if you are a governmental body, you must have procedural rules, and you must follow them! No exceptions. On occasion, city staff would ask me if we could grant one applicant or another flexibility. Invariably, my response was: what do our rules say, and would we grant similar flexibility to others? Cities must administer the approved rules in an even-handed manner. If a city does not, it will eventually get called out for it.

6. Rely on your local planners.

Whether a local government attorney or an outside party, rely on planning staff. Durham’s staff is very intelligent and very well trained. I always enjoyed the back and forth with our staff as we wrestled with complicated questions and explored potential solutions. I also thought it was good to involve the developer and the developer’s counsel and engineers in these discussions. Some of these discussions involved assessments of legal risk, and on occasion, it is good for the developer’s representatives to discuss the potential risk of various courses of action together with the local government staff.

7. Don’t be a government bureaucrat!

I really hate the stereotype of the lazy government employee. I think I dislike this stereotype so much because I have worked with many diligent and intelligent workers in both state and local government settings. So, if you are a government attorney, be responsive and solutions oriented. It is easy to say, “No, you can’t do that.” A better answer is, “I don’t think what you have suggested will work, but I think you could accomplish your goal in this alternative manner.” If you are a private sector attorney, I hope you will be respectful and always truthful in your interactions with your local government attorney. When private sector and government attorneys work cooperatively together, we can do incredible things for our local communities and our state. I hope that we all share that goal.

Good luck to you all!

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