Apr 21

Welcome to what I believe is the first of its kind: a regularly maintained blog dedicated to US county and municipal law.

My name is Sheryl Sisk Schelin. I currently publish several blogs, including The Inspired Solo (for solo lawyers and those who want to be), Blawg In A Box (for lawyers who want to market their practices through blogs), the SC Bankruptcy & Consumer Law Blog (my main practice area as a solo attorney, written with my colleague Dana Wilkinson from Spartanburg, SC), and the About Law School site for About.com. There are also a few others that are non-law-related.

Some of these sites are up for major changes in the near future — some will be put up for sale, some will be continued but in different contexts or by different people, one will be redesigned, and at least one will be maintained “as is.” Given that the blog load will be reduced a bit, it seemed like an opportune time to launch an idea that’s been rolling around inside my brain for quite awhile: County Legal Services, and the County Law Blog.

The idea behind CLS the business is this: I have a unique appreciation for the difficulties faced by county and municipal attorneys from my ten-year career as a staff attorney for Horry County, during which time I worked with departments delivering just about every county/municipal service imaginable (from Airports to Zoning).

Most local governments either have a very small legal department (1 or 2 attorneys is not uncommon) or farm out their legal work to outside counsel. In both circumstances, occasionally projects arise that just can’t be handled in-house, or that require some expertise or experience in the subject matter. CLS is the business entity through which I can provide legal research, drafting, and other services on a contractual per-project basis.

The idea behind CLS the blog is this: During that ten-year period of time, I was struck by one thing in particular: the dearth of resources for local government attorneys. There was one statewide CLE sponsored by the Association of Counties for the state, and the informal association of county lawyers in SC also sponsored an annual seminar in conjunction with the SCAC summer meeting. But for the most part, if we wanted immediate information, we had to turn to Westlaw (expensive) or other sites on individual legal topics and extrapolate the information to the government context.

I thought it was time for a blog dedicated to U.S. county and municipal law. There are some other sites I was able to find that might be of interest. The IMLA blog is perhaps the most active and on-point, although it’s updated infrequently (about 2-3 times a month). Among the Law Professors blog network, there is a State and Local Government Law Professor Blog, but it was last updated in November 2007. Finally, there’s The Public Blawg, which seems restricted to California local government issues.

The CLS Blawg will be updated 3-5 times a week with case law updates, legislative news, articles about different aspects of county/municipal law, and any other relevant information I can find. If you have any tidbits or suggestions for blog posts, please drop me a line through our contact form.