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Parma is the only city surveyed with a full-time, elected law director. Most suburban Northeast Ohio law directors are part-time and appointed.

(File photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Law directors are among the most powerful players in suburban governments, drafting legislation and giving direction to mayors and city councils.

Some law directors in Northeast Ohio have served for more than two decades. Some work for multiple cities, racking up more than $100,000 in taxpayer dollars for part-time jobs.

But most stand outside the public eye: unelected, employed by private firms.

After Bedford Law Director Ken Schuman was charged with accepting bribes in December, Northeast Ohio Media Group and The Plain Dealer took a closer look at law directors, surveying 43 municipalities for their pay and policies.

Six cities – Brook Park, Parma, North Olmsted, Rocky River, Seven Hills and Westlake – elect their law directors. Only four – Lakewood, Parma, Shaker Heights and Strongsville – employ full-time law directors, though Beachwood and Cleveland Heights plan to hire full-time law directors soon.



Law directors’ duties vary. Some serve as city prosecutor, or oversee the prosecutor’s office.

“Their biggest responsibility is advising the mayor and council particularly on municipal law and public record law,” said Jim Dixon, member of the Citizens League of Greater Cleveland.

Thomas Lee, partner at Taft law firm and former law director for Moreland Hills and Middlefield, said city council members need legal advice: “You are talking about volunteers without a business background who are running million-dollar enterprises.”

Possible conflicts of interest

Law directors can work for multiple cities.

For example, lawyer Steve Byron serves as law director for Chagrin Falls ($71,000 to his firm, Walter Haverfield LLP), Hunting Valley ($24,000, plus $23,800 to the firm), Orange ($38,400, plus $33,300 to the firm), Pepper Pike ($42,000, plus $47,300 to the firm) and Waite Hill.

Byron said he’s rarely experienced a conflict of interest. That’s despite the fact that his clients, the Orange and Pepper Pike mayors, disagreed on whether to pursue a merger with each other, along with Moreland Hills and Woodmere.

In 2012, his firm represented both Pepper Pike and Beachwood, when the cities were negotiating for Beachwood to take over dispatch duties. Though it wasn’t particularly controversial, Walter Haverfield contracted the case out to another lawyer because it couldn’t represent both municipalities.

Beachwood’s law director, Margaret Cannon, who is leaving the city, also serves Gates Mills ($21,000 for her firm, Walter Haverfield) and Moreland Hills ($102,000 for the firm).

“Law directors have to watch out for conflict, and we do,” Byron said. “If Orange Village and Pepper Pike wanted to do something, they know I’m the law director for both.”

Jonathan Entin, a law and political science professor at Case Western University, said conflicts can always arise.

For example, Entin said it would be a conflict of interest for a law director to represent adjoining communities or areas that share a school district.

Pepper Pike and Orange share a school district, but Byron said that’s not a problem because the school district is a separate entity.

Pay for law directors

Most Northeast Ohio law directors work either for a private firm or their own firm, though a few serve as full-time city employees.

Cities can sign deals with the lawyers’ firms, or the lawyers themselves. If the contract is with the firm, the city may have to pay a monthly retainer to the firm rather than the law director – or it may pay both.

Some suburbs, such as Gates Mills, pay as little as $21,000 a year for their law director. Strongsville has the highest-paid law director of the cities surveyed, at $142,000 a year.

Most cities arrange to also pay an hourly rate – something between $80 and $230 -- on top of their law director’s salary, for litigation or other extra services. Though how often the law directors bill for those extra hours varies widely.

Law directors can’t handle every legal issue a suburb faces.

Cities often hire outside counsel, at additional costs, to handle bond sales, lawsuits or labor negotiations.

Solon, for example, spent $237,000 on outside counsel fees in 2013 because of a mountain of labor negotiations.

Specializing

Lawyers can’t specialize in law directing as they can, say, bankruptcy or criminal law.

Most lawyers become law directors because they work in a firm that has a local government practice, and people in the firm are part-time law directors for different communities.

“I think this is a challenging job to do straight out of law school because the range of issues is pretty wide,” Entin said.

Once lawyers become law directors, they may stay a while. Gary Ebert has been law director of Bay Village since 1986, Peter Hull in Middleburg Heights since 1984. Margaret Cannon served Beachwood 18 years before leaving this year. Seven Hills has had Rich Pagnatiello serving for 18 years, too.