Governmental & Municipality Law & Litigation

Local governmental entities, including counties, cities, park districts, school districts, municipalities, forest preserve districts, road districts, villages, assessors and their sub-departments, face exorbitant risks when lawsuits are brought against them by residents, individuals and corporations, including large jury verdicts that could affect the taxpayers. Liability as to these entities can arise from claims of employment discrimination, retaliatory discharge, sexual and other harassment, excessive force by police officers, wrongful arrest and detention, denial of permits, First Amendment and other civil rights violations, premises liability involving public property, water diversion and retention cases, defamation, property rights, road design, contract claims, tort claims and other property defects and various types of public official liability.

Knowledge of the specialized defenses afforded to local governments, including tort immunity issues, damages, exclusions and reduced statutes of limitation, is absolutely essential to effective representation of such entities. It is also important to identify any intergovernmental agreements and annexation agreements that may be applicable in these actions. It is imperative for the attorneys to work together with the local governmental entities and their claims professionals in assessing and evaluating claims as well as developing game plans on how each claim should be handled from a legal and practical standpoint.

Vanderlaan Law Group attorneys have more than 25 years of experience working with and defending local governmental entities and municipalities. Our attorneys not only obtain successful trial results for these types of claims, our representation of public entities extend from the administrative stage through appeal to the State and Federal Courts. We have also successfully argued before the Federal District Courts, Courts of Appeals and various state Appellate Courts. VLG has successfully defended many tort actions filed against municipalities and their officials, including winning summary judgment at early stages by asserting defenses against such actions and thus saving the necessary resources of municipal entities.