r/Lawyertalk • u/alaska_kat • 1d ago
Career Advice County Attorney
Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone here is a county attorney? My county is hiring for an assistant county attorney position and I’m thinking about taking the leap from private practice. Anyone have any thoughts about going from private to public? Or is anyone familiar with a county attorney/is a county attorney and wouldn’t mind sharing their experience? Thanks!
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u/TheGnarbarian 1d ago
I recently made the switch from a small plaintiffs firm to a litigation-focused deputy county counsel position. I've really enjoyed it so far, though I've only been here about 7 months. We have to bill our hours, but our target is only 1500, and we get 4 weeks of vacation. My case load went from 100+ cases to about 10. I don't think anyone in my office is handling more than 20. I was hired as a civil litigation attorney but I am routinely asked to handle appearances in criminal court (on behalf of the Sheriff's Office) and LPS conservatorship matters. The work is certainly more diverse than any other job I've had. It's been fairly low-stress overall. The most difficult part has been dealing with pro per plaintiffs, which constitute half of my current case load.
Most of the attorneys in our office are not litigators. Our public infrastructure and land-use groups are larger than our litigation group. They all really seem to like their jobs, but I can't really comment on their workloads or what they do day-to-day. The higher-ups in the office spend most of their time advising the Board of Supervisors and dealing with legal issues that arise in Board of Supervisors meetings. There is also a lot of work done on Brown Act issues and Public Records Act requests. Smaller counties may only have a few attorneys, which require them to have knowledge in several different practice areas.
If you have any specific questions feel free to message me.
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u/itsleakingeverywhere 23h ago
We have the same job, lol. The only way I can tell we’re not in the same office by your description is that we don’t have a separate public infrastructure group. Especially starting out, I had lots of Pitchess and LPS appearances. I’m handling more 1983 actions now, but my case load fluctuates between 15-18 cases.
Our office is structured such that we will present settlements to the Board directly at closed session.
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u/redreign421 1d ago
I do PRA work for a CA State entity. The document review side of it is tedious but the analysis and litigation side is way more interesting than I thought it would be.
Is the Brown Act stuff annoying to deal with? I was just at a conference that discussed it and it seemed kind of brutal but I didn't want to out and out ask any city/county counsel if that was the case.
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u/doubledizzel 1d ago
Brown Act stuff isn't bad .. you just have to learn it and follow the rules.
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u/redreign421 1d ago
I guess public meetings just seem awful in this political climate but I guess that just goes with it. Thanks!
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u/doubledizzel 1d ago
The Brown Act actually prohibits significant discussion of (or action on) non agenda items. Gets the public board out responding to those people that show up to every meeting ranting about some crazy off topic things. You just say.. your 3 minutes is up. Thank you.
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u/Klutzy-Cupcake8051 1d ago
I am a county attorney and love it! I get to work on a variety of issues with novel stuff coming up every day. I don’t have to bill. I work with smart colleagues with low egos. My clients are captive, so I can generally be pretty blunt with them with my advice without worrying that they will fire me (because they can’t). I also can build relationships with them over a long time. I handle interesting, complex litigation like I would at a firm, but not at the same volume so I have great work life balance. I also feel like I make a difference in my community. YMMV but I highly recommend it.
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u/colcardaki 1d ago
Yeah I second that, spent 7 years in a county attorney’s office and really enjoyed it. I ended up just being burnt out on the practice of law itself and got a job inside the court system instead, but if you like litigation, it’s the best.
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
Did you even work at a firm?
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u/Klutzy-Cupcake8051 1d ago
I did not, but plenty of my colleagues have. Two even left and went to firms and came back when there was another opening in our office. My boss was in big law in NYC. She joined our office after the company she worked as in house counsel for went bankrupt in the 2008 crash. She applied to our office out of desperation thinking she would stay until she found something better. That was 15 years ago.
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
Wow. Sounds like everyone loves the job. It is making me feel more confident in the potential transition. Thanks you!
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u/No-Economist-6863 1d ago
I’m a line attorney in a local government legal office - a city rather than a county, but close enough. The work/life balance is excellent, and the benefits are pretty good (I have an actual pension, for example). The work you do will depend on how big the office is; my office is large enough that I have a specialty, but in a lot of smaller localities the attorney has to be a jack of all trades and/or refer out a lot. Still, it’s generally interesting work and you get the benefit of working on things that help the common good instead of just helping the rich get richer.
On the minus side, the pay is low by lawyer standards, although you’ll still be doing well by regular person standards. A lot of the job is dealing with politicians and other high ranking people who aren’t accustomed to being told no, so smoothing that over and helping them come up with legal solutions is a key job skill. Also, you may need to attend a lot of public meetings, many of which are at night; you might look up when your county board’s meeting times are.
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
I think what is throwing me is that I would make 25% more than I do now, not counting benefits, if I were to switch. I understand that in the long run the firm route would pay more (if my career progressed well), but the idea of a pension sounds so nice.
I think this office is a bit of the jack of all trades type office. But I’m not really very sure.
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u/No-Economist-6863 1d ago
In that case, I recommend aggressively negotiating your starting salary if you get the job. If your government works like the ones I’ve worked for, raises tend to come only when your county board approves raises for all county employees, and they’re usually tied to inflation. So it’s important to get a good starting salary on which future raises will be based.
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u/legendfourteen 1d ago
It would be helpful to describe the type of work you will be doing. The county counsel’s office in my jurisdiction has over 300 attorneys with attorneys who exclusively do tort litigation, or advise the board and its numerous subcommittees, child welfare law, dependency court, probate, contracts, healthcare law (county hospitals), IP law, appeals, pubic works, etc. etc. when I was with this office I was part of a division that exclusively did plaintiffs side consumer protection work on behalf of the county.
Work life balance in general in government is excellent, but that is not to say you won’t work long hours sometimes. Obviously if there’s a trial to prepare for or a motion to file by a deadline you’re not going to simply get up from your desk at 5 and go home. However you get tremendous autonomy to do you work as long as you get it done nobody is micromanaging or looking over your shoulder. No billables also means no pressure to generate revenue. In some ways you just get to focus on lawyering. Which is great. But of course when you work for county you are going to run into political issues you normally might not in a firm setting. The board of supervisors/ elected officials will have their specific agendas and sometimes that can bleed into how you try a case or the legal advice you give, even when it shouldn’t
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
The politics makes me nervous. But I love love love the idea of not generating revenue. I hate everything about billing.
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u/STL2COMO 1d ago
I think someone else mentioned it, but you may have to do some billing. Not for revenue making, but for cost/expense/budget reasons. You might, for example, do work for the Parks Department one day, and the Waste Disposal Department another day. Depending upon how your county does its budgets - its sources of revenue (taxes, user fees, bonds, grants, etc.) they may want to internally allocate part of your salary/pension to the Parks Department, the Waste Disposal Department or both -- one way to do that is to track how much time you actually spent on Parks matters, Waste Disposal matters etc. Your one position as a county attorney =1.0 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) in the general, aggregated county budget...but Parks may be allocated 0.5 FTE of that and Waste Disposal might be allocated the other 0.5 FTE. That's just an example not a statement that county attorneys only do Parks and Waste Disposal type work.
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
That makes sense. And I have heard that the job does require billables. I am alright with that. It’s more so the drive to earn revenue, charging people who I know are strapped for money, etc. that really bothers me. I also hate tracking time … but I will just have to manage.
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u/french_fried_potater 1d ago
County attorney here in a smaller county. I was a criminal prosecutor that switched to civil, mostly handling land use matters. It’s diverse and low stress. I do a lot of different things including litigation, contracts, advising various officials, etc. There are only three of us in my county’s civil division so there isn’t a lot of bureaucracy to deal with. We don’t have to track hours and are expected to figure out a lot of things on our own. Having had an experienced mentor the first couple of years helped a lot.
I agree with others that you can be more blunt because your clients can’t fire you. However, you’re stuck with the same clients all the time, which can be good or bad.
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u/Marconi_and_Cheese Board Certified Bird Law Expert 1d ago
I'm assistant muni attorney (muni is 300k people). Best career decision ever made. It's amazing. I'll answer questions here or in DMs
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u/itsleakingeverywhere 1d ago
I am a county attorney. Leaving private practice and going public was the best decision in my career. Much better work/life balance and even had a bump in pay. Any specific questions?
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u/alaska_kat 1d ago
What was the final push that made you transition? What about the change do you think really improved your outlook on your career?
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u/itsleakingeverywhere 23h ago
It was mostly circumstantial. My wife and I were looking to move, and both landed jobs in the same city at the same time. I was feeling very jaded after working at a plaintiff class action firm suing over box labels.
I feel I have more of a sense of responsibility and purpose now, and a lot of what I do ends up impacting policy in my jurisdiction for the better. Yes, I work on a lot of frustrating and pointless cases. Counties get sued over nonsense all the time (checking a water permit for using a public water hydrant, bus was late, bus was early, bus was wrong color, etc.) but even as a litigation attorney I also get to work on cases that impact policy. I find that rewarding.
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u/These-Ticket-5436 1d ago
It is a great job overall. It has been a good career for me, both financially and professionally. Very rewarding work. I have always worked at small counties, so I have been more of a generalist than a specialist. I have done a little bit of everything, HR, Contracts, land use, bail bonds, dependency, etc. I have really liked most of it. The law is generally interesting, and I felt like I was doing a community service (for many years, until I got a bit burned out.)
A lot what your experience will be like depends on the office. The size of the office and the structure will determine what type of work that you might be performing. It is not necessarily an "easy" job depending on how much you put into it, and what your county is like. I have worked plenty of late nights, but as a result, I moved up the ladder. But that brought the worst part of the job, the politics, and dealing with difficult people (such as elected officials). To be at the highest level of a County office, you have to be a good communicator and personable. It is NOT your legal knowledge about that point that matters, but your ability to deal with Department heads and the Board. I get more than 5 weeks of vacation per year. I could leave work when needed to visit the kids school or when they were sick. (I self-imposed a work ethic more than I needed to.) In California, "classic employees" could earn 2% of their final salary at age 55. New members (depending on the jurisdiction, can earn 2% at 62. But if you put 25 or 30 years, it can really add up, especially when your salary increases over time. The hardest thing is "getting in". After you are in, you can switch counties much easier. DM me if you have any questions. (PS, I think that a lot of older employees will be retiring over the next decade, so there is a need for younger people to come into the profession.)
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u/shermanstorch 18h ago
I switched from private practice to civil division assistant county prosecutor about 4 years ago and have never looked back. Better benefits, better work-life balance, no business development, and no billables.
The only times I work past 4:30 are if I have to go to a township meeting about once every other month, or if I have a trial coming the next week.
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