Coeur d'Alene has 'very experienced legal staff'

COEUR d'ALENE - City Attorney Mike Gridley said the purpose of the legal department he oversees is to provide the best quality legal services possible for Coeur d'Alene. The city attorney's office handles all litigation involving the city and prosecutes all criminal misdemeanor cases and infractions on behalf of the city.

Gridley, who has overseen the office for 13 years, said his goal for the department is to be right every time one of its clients - the mayor, city council, or city employees - brings them an issue.

In 2015, the legal department has a budget of $1.4 million - 93 percent of which pays for the salary and benefits of its 14 employees.

"I was joking around with someone the other day and said, 'I don't think you ever want to have the cheapest lawyer in the room,'" Gridley said. "We've got some very experienced legal staff and that's of great benefit to the city."

The legal department is composed of four full-time criminal attorneys and one criminal attorney who works part time. Gridley said that any time a misdemeanor or infraction takes place within city limits, it's the criminal division's responsibility to prosecute the case.

Any instances of felony activity are handled by the Kootenai County Prosecutor's Office. However, since the Coeur d'Alene Police Department is often called to respond to those incidents, Gridley said his office often does get involved.

"We advise them and work with them on cases if there are any questions," Gridley said. "But it would be unusual for us to get involved in the actual prosecution."

Last year, the city's criminal division prosecuted 2,985 cases, the majority of which were misdemeanors.

Most of the criminal prosecutors also work on the civil side, Gridley added. One of the city attorneys on the criminal side is working on water adjudication rights in North Idaho.

"It helps those guys maintain some freshness and newness rather than just doing criminal prosecution," Gridley said. "And it helps us because we can distribute the workload and they do a good job. I think you'd find that's pretty unusual for a criminal prosecution office."

Gridley called the department's civil division "a very interesting, but very varied, legal practice." The division has two full-time civil attorneys who work with every city department except law enforcement.

"It's A to Z - animals to zoning - and everything in between," Gridley said.

As an example, Gridley told The Press on Friday that he was working on the city's agreement with North Idaho College for tree removal on the levee, as well as the legal aspects of a city employee's upcoming retirement.

Any time a branch of the city is working on an initiative or proposal, Gridley said, he encourages the employees to engage his office early.

"We tell them that if they have a legal question they should come to us before it becomes a legal problem," Gridley said. "It's always easier and cheaper to get the foundation right on your house rather then wait for a problem."

Gridley compared the department's civil division to a medical general practitioner. When an issue arises that is too specialized for the in-house team, the department turns to experts such as environmental or labor lawyers and asks them questions.

"There's some stuff that's just so specialized, to get the best possible result we feel like we have to get it to the best people we can find," Gridley said.

That accounts for a small portion of funds the department pays to outside counsel each year. Outside counsel is primarily used when legal action is taken against the city in instances like an injury or a personnel disciplinary discharge claim.

Since 2011, the legal department has spent $206,362 on outside counsel. A large portion of that expenditure occurred in 2011 and 2012, when former Coeur d'Alene Police Department officer Dan Dixon was awarded $3.2 million in a wrongful termination lawsuit against the city.

Gridley said he often receives the question of why these matters aren't handled by the city's attorneys.

"To some extent it's a staffing thing, but the other thing I truly believe is that you're either in it or you're not and we don't have the volume of cases to justify having someone in-house who is specialized in civil litigation," Gridley said. "It's better to give the cases over to people who are doing that every day."

There are still a handful of claims that require the city to pay for outside counsel. Gridley said that with the city's switch last September from self-insurance to coverage through ICRMP - the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program - the majority of future expenditures on attorneys not with the city will be covered.

"I think the council realized we are a 24/7 operation, we've got 400 employees and we're doing all kinds of things," Gridley said of the move. "We're not a little town anymore. The number of employees in my department has stayed the same since I've been here. In the meantime, Coeur d'Alene has grown by approximately 50 percent."