The Office of the County Counsel is a public law office that handles civil matters for the County of Calaveras. The office is supervised by the County Counsel, an attorney appointed by the Board of Supervisors to provide advisory and litigation support to the Board and all of its subservient departments, administrators, committees and commissions, as well as to other elected and appointed County officials and their departments, the civil Grand Jury, and Special Districts.
The office’s primary client is the County through the Board of Supervisors and its primary mission is therefore to provide legal support to the priorities and goals defined by the Board. The County Counsel’s Office is responsible for advising its clients on how to implement an enormous and ever-changing range of federal, state, and local laws at the county level and how to implement the goals and policy objectives of its elected officials within the framework of these laws. The County Counsel’s Office is responsible to defend and protect the County in state and federal trial and appellate courts, and before various administrative bodies and to draft, review, and defend local ordinances, resolutions, contracts, leases, and other local-level regulations, policies, and procedures.
The County Counsel’s Office performs its duties within a wide range of legal practice areas that are vital to the functioning of the County and the welfare of its residents.
These include:
- Public Safety
- Emergency Services
- Health & Human Services
- Land Use & Development
- Nuisance Abatement
- Environmental Health
- Child Welfare
- Conservatorships & Probate
- Animal Services
- Property Taxation
- Public Works, Roads & Transportation
- Public Contracting & Purchasing
- Public Employment
- Public Records
- Public Finance
- Privacy & Technology
- Elections
- Special Districts
- Governance & Public Meetings