Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

City attorney

An attorney employed by a city to advise it and represent it in legal matters. -Also termed municipal attorney; city counsel; corporation counsel; city solicitor.There may have been a time in this country when the function of the City Attorney of the average city consisted mainly of advising the Council, preparing an occasional ordinance or handling an infrequent lawsuit. The legal business of the average city is no longer so simple, so infrequent and so non consuming of the time of the City Attorney. Every action of the City must be justified by its legal powers, and the City Attorney is the municipal officer whose responsibility it is to decide whether any act or action is within the city's legal powers. The demands of citizens for augmented municipal services, and the resulting diversification of city operations have increased the volume of work to the point where the City Attorney, in many cities, has become a central consultant of the city off