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Deputy City Prosecutor

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Deputy City Prosecutor

Salary

$101,356.50 Annually

Location

City County Building, IN

Job Type

Full Time

Job Number

09076

Department

Office of Corporation Counsel

Opening Date

05/08/2025

Closing Date

Continuous

+ Description

+ Benefits

Position Summary

The Office of Corporation Counsel (OCC) provides legal services to the City and County through its three main divisions. First, OCC represents the City, County agencies, and City-County employees in litigation, handling a diverse docket that ranges from tort and contract matters to constitutional law. Second, through its counseling division, OCC provides legal advice to City and County agencies, officials, and oversight bodies to ensure that public entities remain compliant with the law and standards of ethical conduct, to safeguard public funds, and to promote the efficient functioning of local government for Marion County taxpayers. OCC’s third division is the Office of the City Prosecutor, which is responsible for enforcing City-County ordinances. OCC also oversees the Office of Equal Opportunity, which administers the City’s human rights ordinance, protecting against discrimination in employment and other contexts. In exercising these crucial legal functions, OCC cultivates a productive, collaborative, and compliant work environment that prioritizes the needs of our clients and the residents of Indianapolis and Marion County.

The Deputy City Prosecutor will handle a wide range of civil ordinance enforcement litigation matters on behalf of City-County agencies, with a focus on more complex or high-stakes matters that require significant professional experience and/or subject-matter expertise. The incumbent will also share responsibility for managing a team of attorneys and supervising more junior attorneys and members of support staff. The position holder will serve in OCC’s Office of the City Prosecutor.

Position Responsibilities

The Deputy City Prosecutor is a working manager, combining an active litigation caseload with management responsibilities.

The primary responsibility of a Deputy City Prosecutor is to represent the City-County and related agencies in civil litigation matters in ordinance enforcement in state court and in administrative hearings. The position may, on occasion, require the Deputy City Prosecutor to assist an OCC litigator on federal litigation resulting from a state court ordinance enforcement matter.

The Deputy City Prosecutor will be responsible for all facets of complex code enforcement prosecution. On many cases, the holder of this position will assume the role of the primary attorney. This role representing our public agency clients includes preparing complaints, answers, and other pleadings; researching and filing motions and briefs; handling discovery and depositions; judicial hearings; settlement negotiations; and trial advocacy. As a senior attorney, this position holder will take responsibility for enforcement matters that are highly sensitive in nature, involve significant potential financial liability, implicate complex legal issues, or involve complicated discovery and case management challenges.

On other matters, the Deputy City Prosecutor will play a “second chair” role, handling some aspects of a case while another attorney occupies the lead role. In such cases, the deputy’s role may be to provide high-level guidance to a more junior attorney who is handling the day-to-day aspects of a case. This high-level guidance includes strategic direction, client communications, review of the junior attorney’s work, and communications with opposing counsel.

The Deputy City Prosecutor’s management role requires active supervision of a team of attorneys and paralegals. Working in conjunction with the City Prosecutor, the deputy will be responsible for conducting regular check-ins with more junior attorneys, delegating responsibility and assigning case work as appropriate, and ensuring that the office as a whole professionally discharges its duties to clients. The deputy, alongside other senior management personnel, will set the strategic direction for the City Prosecutor’s Office, which includes adopting internal policies and procedures to optimize the division’s performance.

The Deputy City Prosecutor position also involves the following additional responsibilities:

+ Providing advice to client agencies on litigation strategy and settlement negotiations.

+ Keeping clients, including senior agency staff and elected officials, fully informed on litigation matters affecting their agencies.

+ Conducting or assisting in the training of junior legal staff, paralegals, and various agency enforcement personnel.

+ Representing City-County agencies in administrative hearings or similar settings.

+ Keeping apprised of relevant legal developments at the state and federal level.

+ Overseeing the work of junior legal staff and the paralegals.

+ Performing the duties of the City Prosecutor when the City Prosecutor is absent or has delegated such duties.

+ Performing other duties as assigned by the Corporation Counsel, Deputy Corporation Counsel or City Prosecutor.

Skills Required

Strong independent judgment. This role requires willingness to take individual responsibility for weighty matters that affect the lives and livelihoods of others. While support from other staff and department leadership is available, deputy chiefs must have the confidence and good judgment to make decisions independently in a variety of settings.

In-depth knowledge of litigation practice. The Deputy City Prosecutor is expected to be proficient in all aspects of the litigation process, including legal writing, discovery, civil procedure, and substantive areas of the law that are frequently implicated by the office’s work, including trial procedure, constitutional law and government practice.

Strategic vision. The Deputy City Prosecutor is responsible not only for guiding individual cases, but for helping to shape the City-County’s approach to ordinance enforcement litigation—and litigation-related risk—more generally. This duty requires a broad field of vision, extensive experience in the practice of law, and the ability to understand the long-term implications of the office’s decisions.

Leadership ability. This position often involves managing the work of more junior attorneys and other staff members. The Deputy City Prosecutor must be able to provide useful guidance, meaningfully delegate responsibility, and promote a collegial, respectful work environment.

Analytical ability and intellectual curiosity. This position faces a wide variety of legal issues and fact patterns. While attorneys are encouraged to develop areas of expertise over time, the position requires rapidly digesting new information, integrating it into an existing body of knowledge, and adeptly using legal research tools to acquire mastery of all the issues raised by each litigation matter as it arises.

Proficiency at legal writing and other written communication. This includes more formal work product like summary judgment briefs, motions to dismiss, and memoranda. The Deputy City Prosecutor must also be skilled at more informal communications, including messages to clients, communications with opposing counsel, and summaries of legal research.

Oral communications skills. This includes administrative proceedings, pre-trial hearings before judicial officers, or bench trials. The Deputy City Prosecutor must concisely and effectively communicate their arguments, be adept at improvising and thinking on their feet, and be able to adapt their tone and messaging to the needs of different audiences in different settings.

Zealous advocacy. Many of the enforcement matters handled by this position will be high profile. Position holders must keep in mind that their client is ultimately the public, and must treat their work with the attention and seriousness that it deserves.

Time management skills. Despite their management role, deputy city prosecutors are responsible for considerable caseloads. Success in the position requires efficiency, strong time management, and the ability to prioritize the most pressing or important tasks.

Ethics and professionalism. Holders of this position are public servants, and so are their clients. All attorneys at the Office of Corporation Counsel are expected to uphold the highest standards of professional ethics and responsible advocacy.

Qualifications

+ Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) from an ABA-accredited law school.

+ Valid license to practice law in Indiana.

+ Admitted to practice in the Southern District of Indiana.

+ Proficiency in legal research tools, including Westlaw, and familiarity with electronic filing and records management systems.

+ At least five years’ experience in the practice of law as a licensed attorney (may include a judicial clerkship), OR at least two years’ experience as a litigation attorney with the Office of Corporation Counsel.

+ Subject-matter expertise or significant work experience in litigation, administrative proceedings or government practice.

Preferred Job Requirements and Qualifications

+ Five or more years’ experience as a practicing litigator in Indiana.

+ Management experience.

+ Significant professional experience (as an attorney or non-attorney) in local government, law enforcement, or administrative procedure.

+ Significant individual experience in conducting complex discovery, authoring dispositive motions, oral advocacy, or trials.