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 or municipal issues that are unrelated to their official position within the municipality. 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 among the Legal Services attorneys 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.