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Columbus-based attorney, Donald McTigue, right, shown here while representing former Cleveland City Councilman Eugene Miller during an elections dispute in 2013, faces a potential conflict of interest. McTigue is representing a group that is suing City Council, his longtime client, over a proposal to set the city's minimum wage at $15 an hour.

(Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley questions whether a Columbus law firm suing council over a $15 minimum wage initiative faces a conflict of interest because of the firm's history as a consultant to council.

Kelley said in a recent interview that he's looking into the possibility that work performed on the controversial case by the law firm McTigue & Colombo LLC presents a conflict of interest, given the professional relationship between council and one of the firm's principals Donald McTigue.

Lawyers with the firm, which specializes in election, campaign finance and political and public law, filed a complaint against council last month in the Ohio Supreme Court, contending that Council Clerk Pat Britt unlawfully refused to accept 18,000 signatures calling for the minimum wage issue to be decided at the general election.

McTigue has represented council members and the group as a whole for years.

In 2014, despite its stable of full-time attorneys and policy researchers, council forged a $25,000 contract with the firm, at the time called McTigue & McGinnis, to assist council with legal issues "including but not limited to advising on the Charter and Codified Ordinances related to campaign finance issues."

In February 2016, with McTigue advising, council voted to increase caps on campaign donations.

McTigue's legal services have appeared on campaign expense reports for numerous council members through the years. And he represented former City Councilman Eugene Miller in 2013, when Miller was accused of changing his voting address to gain an edge on his opponents in the Ward 10 election.

McTigue did not return a call for comment Wednesday.

According to the American Bar Association, a conflict of interest exists if the "representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or if there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer's responsibilities to another client, a former client or a third person or by a personal interest of the lawyer."

Whether McTigue's representation of the minimum wage petitioners will be affected by his relationship with City Council is debatable. But the bar association prescribes that lawyers presented with a potential conflict should seek informed consent in writing from both clients before proceeding with the litigation.

Kelley says McTigue did not do so.

At issue in the case before the Supreme Court is whether the city charter requires council to put the $15 minimum wage initiative on the November ballot, on account of 5,000 additional signatures gathered by the petitioners.

The Service Employees International Union, through the newly formed local group Raise Up Cleveland, had collected enough signatures of Cleveland voters to compel council to introduce legislation on the issue in May.

The legislation was referred to committees, which had 60 days after the proposal was introduced to hold hearings on the issue and make a recommendation on passage. Last month, the committees recommended that council as a whole vote no.

Council then had another 30 days to arrive at a decision, and is expected to take a final vote next week.

If council votes down the ordinance or adopts an amended version, the petitioners have the option, under the City Charter, of putting the original language on the ballot for Cleveland voters.

Kelley and most of his colleagues have said they oppose the initiative, arguing that raising the minimum wage in Cleveland alone, while the rest of the state remains at $8.10 an hour, would kill jobs and prompt businesses to flee the city.

Questions arose in June over whether Raise Up Cleveland had turned in its initial pile of signatures in time to guarantee a shot at the general election ballot. To get around that potential hitch, petitioners turned in the additional 18,000 signatures last month in the hopes of triggering a charter provision that could force a special election with an additional 5,000 valid signatures.

Britt rejected them, contending that she could not accept the signatures before council made its final decision on the matter.

The petitioners filed their complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court on July 20.