Yes, my plate is full. YEs, I have all I can say grace over, and then some - but - giving legal advice to the Commissioners Court is part of my job, and not a part that I am willing to give up easily. Few attorneys who are not involved with county government take the time to learn the goofy quirks in the law that relate to counties. I am not willing to trust the legal well being of my county, commissioners, and other elected officials to a low bidder.

The conclusion in this opinion is neither novel nor a revelation. As an AG opinion, of course, it is entitled to deference (the degree of deference depends on who you ask; it's either the deference due spam Viagra e-mails or the deference due the tablets with which Moses descended from Mt. Sinai). But we have been bound by the observations of the Texas Supreme Court in Guynes v. Galveston County since 1993. We've known for a long time that, unless we're in a county in which a statute specifically assigns to the county attorney civil representation duty, the CA is not duty-bound to represent the county or the commissioners court. A minor hiccup in this scheme is section 157.901 of the Local Government Code (as to county officers and employees sued for the performance of official duties). Nor is the county obligated to use the county attorney as its in-house counsel. But it isn't prohibited from doing so, either.

We are Potter County's lawyers not by statutory requirement, but by contractual arrangement. If we want the county to listen to us in civil matters, we'd better have some diplomatic skills to bring to the table (or a mandatory statute, in those counties that are subject to such provisions), as well as demonstrable know-how and sound advice. That being said, Lisa is absolutely right about the expertise available from our cadre at an eminently affordable rate (when compared to deep-rug folks who charge $200-plus per hour and even then aren't ubiquitously well informed about the convoluted world of county law). My survey response, then, would have to be "that's just the way it is."