Local Government
Ancel Glink provides creative and cost-effective solutions to your local government problems.
Ancel Glink’s local government practice offers comprehensive legal services to municipalities, park districts and other local governments. We provide expert guidance on governance, regulatory compliance, litigation, and policy development, ensuring effective solutions and supporting the successful operation of local governments.
With our extraordinary experience and resources, Ancel Glink is well-qualified to advise and provide counsel to local government officials and employees. We are experienced in representing a variety of units of local government, including municipalities, counties, park districts, townships, libraries, school districts, and various special districts. Our attorneys work consistently with the laws governing the crucial day-to-day matters encountered by local governments, including legislative and procedural matters, federal and state compliance issues, ethics and conflicts of interest, public bidding, purchasing, and contracting, open meetings and open records, labor and personnel for public employees, the acquisition and disposition of real estate, and land use and development, among many other matters.
The following are a few examples of the work we do for our local government clients:
- Regularly attend board, commission, and committee meetings on behalf of our local government clients.
- Routinely advise elected and appointed officials and employees on all types of legal issues that affect governmental bodies.
- Review and draft agreements, ordinances, resolutions, and other legal documents on a wide-range of issues.
- Draft, negotiate, and review intergovernmental agreements, construction contracts, development agreements, and other government contracts.
- Prepare policies to comply with and implement federal and state laws.
- Advise our clients on personnel matters, as well as participate in collective bargaining negotiations and handle grievances and arbitrations for our governmental clients.
- Provide formal written legal opinions on matters impacting our clients.
Municipalities
Ancel Glink serves as the primary Village, City, or Town Attorney for many municipalities across the state. We also serve as special counsel to municipalities that need our assistance on special projects or matters, including serving as special labor counsel, defending litigation matters, or providing specialized land use services. We have represented communities with less than 5,000 residents and those with over 100,000 residents, both throughout the Chicago area and beyond through the services of our central Illinois office located in Bloomington.
We frequently conduct workshops and seminars for our general and special counsel municipal clients, including board workshops and training sessions, and other board and committee advisory sessions on new matters of widespread concern. When new state or federal legislation is passed, our clients are fully briefed on the impact, as well as creative approaches for compliance. Ancel Glink lawyers regularly lecture on a variety of local government topics at seminars and workshops throughout Illinois and around the country.
Ancel Glink’s collective experience in municipal law is also reflected in our attorneys’ contributions to various local, state, and national publications, including significant contributions to several of the chapters that comprise the four volume Illinois Municipal Law Series, published by IICLE and edited by our partner, Stewart H. Diamond. The popular Illinois Municipal Handbook published by the Illinois Municipal League is written entirely by Ancel Glink attorneys and has become the most valuable resource for local government officials and employees across the state.
Park Districts
Ancel Glink represents more than 50 park districts, municipal park and recreation departments, and special recreation districts across Illinois. Both our attorneys and our clients consider parks the “fun government.” Our Park District clients assist individuals and families to improve their health, participate in recreational programs and enjoy open space. Ancel Glink has become the premier firm in the representation of park districts because our clients have concluded that it is no longer possible to maintain and operate a park district without developing substantial knowledge and familiarity with this special area of the law. The firm’s park practice has expanded because we offer not only our economical legal services, but practical expertise for both standard and complex issues. We are able to do so because our staff includes professionals who have stood in our client’s shoes and understand the challenges park districts must meet.
Ancel Glink attorneys are the authors of a book series published by the Illinois Association of Park Districts designed to assist both elected officials and professionals. The Illinois Park District Law Handbook explains the legal rights and responsibilities of park districts and interprets and analyzes the Park District Code. Although the handbook cannot supply the answer to every question that might come up, it is a good source for initial reference and investigation. The contents of the handbook illustrate well the full-service nature of our law firm. In addition, the Financial Procedures Manual for Illinois Park Districts provides step-by-step legal and practical explanations for how to prepare financial documents and comply with state law in matters related to appropriations, tax levies, borrowing and investing money and filing financial reports.
For more information about our park district practice, please talk to our clients, for it is their word of mouth that is our best asset. Of course, you can also contact us for additional information.
Libraries
From the perspective of a library user, the operation of a library seems a serene endeavor involving comfortable buildings available for the public to read or research with a treasure trove of content. Behind the scenes, however, and seldom appreciated by the public, are the legal issues faced by the professional staff of the library and its elected or appointed officials who are devoted to continuing the success of this community service.
Ancel Glink represents a number of libraries and library districts throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. We also serve as corporate counsel for the northern Illinois’ regional system, Reaching Across Illinois Library System (“RAILS”). The firm offers its library clients attorneys with expertise in a variety of practice areas, including public finance, employment, construction and corporate concerns while counseling the library about its regular day-to-day business. Because the firm represents many kinds of governmental bodies, we offer special expertise when conflicts occur between governments or when intergovernmental agreements can result in mutual benefits.
Ancel Glink attorneys wrote the Financial Manual for Illinois Public Libraries, available through the Illinois Library Association. We are proud to offer this manual to assist library trustees and library staff interested in learning more about the financial management tools for their libraries. The manual outlines the budgeting and levying process of Illinois libraries, and also provides guidance related to personnel, construction and liability issues. Although the manual cannot supply the answer to every question about library finance, it is a good source for initial reference and investigation. Attorneys of the firm are frequent contributors to the ILA’s journal, the Reporter, and our attorneys speak at the annual ILA Conference.
Townships
Townships are the oldest form of local government in Illinois. The Illinois Constitution of 1848 gave voters in each county the opportunity to adopt township government. By 1850, the first township governments began operation. Townships are the governmental entities charged with three basic functions: (1) general assistance for the indigent; (2) the assessment of real property for the basis of local taxation; and (3) maintenance of all roads and bridges outside federal, state, and other local jurisdiction. Beyond the three mandated services, township government provides other vital services to their residents. This may include senior citizens programs, youth programs, assistance to the disabled, parks and recreational facilities, health services, local transportation, open space, and cemetery maintenance. In this regard township government serves its neighbors from the cradle to the grave.
Ancel Glink represents numerous townships throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. We assist our township clients in complex and mixed questions of law, economics finance, general assistance, open space, personnel, collective bargaining, and real estate matters.
Ancel Glink attorneys are the authors of the Township of Illinois Laws and Duties Handbook. The handbook describes and explains the legal rights and responsibilities of townships and it interprets and analyzes the Township Code. The firm also assisted in the creation of the Illinois Township Supervisors Guide.
School Districts
Ancel Glink has represented school districts through the unprecedented growth of the 1940s and the 1950s, the social turmoil of the 1960s, the increase of government regulation and employee awareness of the 1970s and 1980s and the financial difficulties of the past three decades. Creative and innovative approaches to problem solving are what these difficult and constantly changing circumstances demand and what the firm’s long and varied experience makes possible. We represent school districts as their general attorney, in litigation, and as counsel on special matters, including advising districts on employment matters and assisting in collective bargaining negotiations.
In addition, our firm currently serves as chief defense attorney for several educational self- insurance pools which keeps the firm in constant contact with the problems faced by more than 100 Illinois school districts. One of our partners is the founding General Editor and current Co-Editor of the two volume handbook published by the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education entitled “Illinois School Law.”
Special Districts and Other Government Bodies
Illinois has more governmental bodies than any other state in the country, including numerous forms of special districts. Ancel Glink represents many of these special districts as corporate attorneys and as special counsel or consultants. In our special district practice, Ancel Glink provides services to fire protection districts, community colleges, sanitary and water districts, and other specialized units of local government or governmental agencies. The firm’s experience in providing day-to-day representation of special districts for many years helps us to provide their elected and appointed officials with the necessary “rules of the road” to achieve their district’s goals and policies.
Our Recent Case Studies
Municipalities
Park Districts
Townships
Libraries
School Districts
Special Districts
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