CITY ATTORNEY INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

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INTRODUCTION

1. Please provide a brief summary of your specialization and experience that would enhance
your role as our City Attorney?

2. Why do you want this job? What challenges are you looking for in this position?

COUNCIL-CITY ATTORNEY RELATIONSHIP

3. The City Attorney is hired by and reports to the City Council, but is expected to work
successfully with the City Administrator and his directors and department managers.
How will you best serve these relationships?

4. Assume at a meeting that Council members are divided over how to deal with a problem.
Discussion becomes heated and argumentative, with members showing little flexibility.
What actions would you take to move the discussion forward?

5. Sometimes matters come up outside of the normal business week or after hours.
( What will be your availability to the Council or City Administrator should issues arise
and what would be your response time to City officials?
With other professional commitments, how much time would you personally have to
devote to Carmel?

LEGAL ADVOCACY

6. Sometimes the City Attorney will be asked for a legal opinion regarding an issue during a
public meeting.
How would you respond, and in what instances would it be appropriate to provide a
written legal opinion?
Based on your preparation for this interview, what are the most important legal
challenges facing the Carmel community?

7. Coastal issues, land use and growth can be controversial in Carmel.

What background do you have in these areas? And how would you apply yourself or
your experience to our land use issues?
Regarding land-use law, tell us about a particularly difficult land use issue that you
managed to a successful outcome.

8. What experience have you had in working with policy issues that have been viewed as
operationally obstructive? How have you reworked policy to remove barriers?
COMMUNICATION

9. Carmel has had a long-term City Attorney who possesses a strong historical perspective of the
community. How would you build a rapport and foster relationships as the new City Attorney?

10. On the issue of open communication in the City workplace:

What behaviors promote and what behaviors hinder open communication?
In your experience, what role have you played to facilitate communication and how do
you avoid selective communication?

11. Many Carmel residents and business people are actively engaged in our city government and
are accustomed to reaching out to discuss matters with our City Attorney.
How would you handle those occasions or what would you do to change their
expectations of a City Attorney?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

12. Having to do with successes and failures:

First, tell us about your greatest success or accomplishment and how that experience
would assist you in this position.
Second, what was your most significant failure in working with an agency and what did
you learn from it?

13. What do you perceive could be a potential conflict of interest for you in carrying out your
duties as Carmel's City Attorney?
What other commitments do you presently have?
How much time can you devote to this position?

14. As we conclude the interview, do you have any additional information or comments you
would like to provide?