New Hampshire
Local Government Center
25 Triangle Park Drive Concord, NH 03301
603.224.7447



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Legal Services for Municipalities

The New Hampshire Local Government Center's Legal Services and Government Affairs Department provides general legal advice to local officials and represents municipal interests before the legislature and state agencies. The department has seven attorneys; four primarily provide legal services and three primarily provide advocacy services.

Legal Services Provided
Four LGC attorneys are available to answer inquiries and provide general legal assistance to elected and appointed officials from member towns, cities and village districts. The attorneys also write articles, handbooks and other publications on legal issues, as well as present workshops and other educational programs on municipal matters. Occasionally, LGC attorneys submit amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs to the New Hampshire Supreme Court on behalf of member municipalities. If your town/city is involved in a lawsuit that reaches the Supreme Court and includes a municipal issue of statewide significance, please let us know.

The Attorney/Client Relationship
Engaging LGC's legal services creates an attorney/client relationship. As with any such relationship, our provision of legal advice is governed by rules of professional conduct. Therefore, the following limitations apply:

  • Our attorney/client relationship is with your municipality, not the caller personally. This means that the right to keep legal advice confidential belongs to the town or city, not the caller. While we won't share information on the legal advice we've given you with the press or public, we will share it with other affected officials in your town or city.
  • Our legal advice is not meant to interfere with the important relationship between a municipality and its regular attorney. We are quite willing to share ideas and opinions with your local legal counsel. We cannot provide private citizens with opinions on municipal law, nor can we advise municipal officials on their own private legal issues. Our role is to advise public officials on matters relating to the official duties they perform for their town or city.
  • We cannot advise member municipalities on matters involving disputes with other member municipalities, since that would be a clear conflict of interest.
  • The municipality is our client, not an individual official or board; when inquiries involve a dispute between differing local officials or boards, we may ask that the inquiry be put in writing so that we can issue our legal opinion to all affected parties.
  • Legal Services attorneys do not advise or represent LGC's insurance trusts. Legal inquiries remain confidential and are not shared with the insurance trusts. We cannot advise you on matters regarding specific insurance policy language. While we may discuss general liability questions with you, the advice we give is not intended to address insurance coverage, and following our legal advice is completely unrelated to any guarantee of insurance coverage. Coverage and other insurance related questions should be directed to LGC's Risk Services Department.

Subject Matter of Inquiries
Inquiries may be made on the full range of legal issues that arise in the operation of local government. However, LGC's attorneys can best assist you by answering questions of general municipal law, especially questions that can be answered by reference to state statutes or court opinions. Questions that hinge on detailed local facts, documents, or the peculiarities of local ordinances or charters should be referred to your regular legal counsel. LGC does not represent member municipalities in court; therefore, your regular municipal attorney is your best advocate in situations that are likely to lead to litigation. Due to the volume of legal inquiries received, LGC attorneys cannot provide comprehensive drafting or legal review of contracts, ordinances, warrants or charters, or complete review of specific applications before local boards. Nor are we able to provide you with "model" ordinances, contracts or forms. We can, of course, answer general questions you may have about any of these matters.

Adjusting the Scope of Legal Services to Your Municipality
The scope of any attorney/client relationship is up to the client. Therefore, the local governing body of any LGC member municipality is free to ask us to limit our legal services to that municipality beyond the limitations described in this guide. For example, a municipality could ask us not to respond to particular officials or boards, types of inquiries, or to respond only to inquiries directed through the governing body or town manager or administrator. We must, and will, scrupulously honor any such request. To avoid misunderstandings, the request for service limitations should be confirmed by a majority vote of the local governing body and provided to us in writing, signed by the governing body.

How to Reach the Attorneys

Telephone Inquiries
The Legal Services attorneys can be reached at 800.852.3358. An attorney is on telephone duty each business day between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., except in unusual circumstances. Please try to leave plenty of time for your request to be answered. The attorney may be helping other clients when your call is received and may need time for research to adequately answer your question. If you reach voicemail, please leave a brief message describing your inquiry along with your contact information. We will return your phone call in a timely manner. If your inquiry requires a written response, please submit your request in writing.

Written Inquiries
Written, faxed or e-mailed inquiries will receive written responses, unless you specifically request a telephone response. A careful written legal opinion takes time to prepare; due to the volume of inquiries we receive, we ask you to leave ample time for a written response.

Electronic Communication
We are often asked to respond to your inquiries by reaching you on your cell phone or sending written opinions to an e-mail address or a fax machine. Please be aware that these methods of communication do not always provide the most secure environments for the transmission of confidential information.