Practices
Municipal Law

Municipal Law

Many of our lawyers have served as town attorney to numerous towns throughout Connecticut over the last twenty years. In that capacity, lawyers at the firm have provided a wide range of municipal law services including drafting and reviewing charter provisions, ordinances, land use regulations, and contracts. We have also handled freedom of information, parliamentary rules, ethics and general governance issues, as well as various types of litigation, including property tax foreclosures and land use appeals. In addition, we have advised towns on various election laws, including referendum, minority party representation and absentee ballot statuses. For years, we have proudly provided pro-bono legal services as general counsel to the Connecticut Council of Small Towns.

We represent many governmental and quasi-public entities as general counsel or special counsel on a wide range of issues including:

drafting and interpreting legislation
drafting and adopting agency policies and procedures
advising on the status of agency employees under state legislation and civil service laws

We have extensive experience in government procurement and contracting, including privatization initiatives, and the statutory and constitutional framework within which such governmental entities operate.

The work we have done for our governmental and quasi-governmental clients has included:

drafting legislation;
drafting and reviewing RFQs, RFIs, RFPs and other bid solicitations;
municipal finance including development of procedures relating to contracting, procurement, bonding, financial assistance programs and related matters;
labor and employment counsel and the development of personnel policies, employee handbooks, etc.;
Freedom of Information Act compliance, including public meeting requirements and public records requirements and proceedings before the Freedom of Information Commission;
Code of Ethics compliance, including requests for informal staff advisory opinions and formal ethics opinions;
advice regarding the applicability of, and compliance with, Executive Orders of the Governor and the State Contracting Requirements;
compliance with statutory reporting requirements;
consideration and advice concerning various Attorney General’s Opinions;
counsel regarding funding, purchasing and grant administration regulations;
advice on insurance matters;
corporate and business matters;
commercial real estate, finance and other transactional matters; and
environmental and land use matters, and advice pertaining to the Connecticut Transfer Act.