Call For Award Nominations: Galen Sparks and Susan Rocha Awards for Outstanding Public Service
Galen Sparks served as an assistant city attorney and dedicated public servant for the City of Dallas for over 27 years. He distinguished himself in a variety of areas of municipal law and generously shared his time and expertise in a way that substantially enhanced the professionalism of his fellow municipal lawyers. The TCAA “Galen Sparks Award for Outstanding Public Service” is intended to recognize and honor a current or former city attorney or assistant city attorney for significant and distinguished career achievements in the field of municipal law.
The TCAA board grants one award each year for an in-house city attorney or assistant city attorney.
Susan Rocha served as an assistant city attorney for the City of San Antonio early in her career, and went on to be a trailblazer in municipal law. She served as president of both the Texas City Attorneys Association and the International Municipal Lawyers Association, and was a mentor and role model for many attorneys in the field due to her hard work, many achievements, and – of course – irrepressible personality. The TCAA “Susan Rocha Award for Outstanding Public Service” is intended to recognize and honor a current or former city attorney or assistant city attorney for significant and distinguished career achievements in the field of municipal law.
The TCAA board grants one award each year for outside counsel serving as a city attorney or assistant city attorney.
The recipients of these awards will be honored at the TCAA Summer Conference. In addition, TCAA will provide complimentary registration for the conference. The deadline to submit a nomination is April 26, 2024. The criteria and the nomination form are available here.
Call For Award Nominations: TCAA Outstanding Mentor Award
Just about every lawyer has a mentor who guided his or her career. In an effort to recognize the efforts of a special municipal law mentor, the TCAA Board of Directors created the TCAA “Outstanding Mentor Award.” The award is intended to recognize and honor a municipal attorney for his or her significant and distinguished mentoring achievements related to young attorneys and their practice in the field of municipal law.
The nominee must have demonstrated the qualities of a mentor to one or more young municipal attorneys by: (1) serving as a role model to young municipal lawyers in his or her community; (2) fostering the development of young municipal lawyers; and (3) significantly contributing to the profession and/or the community.
The recipient of this award will be honored at the TCAA Summer Conference. In addition, TCAA will provide complimentary registration for the conference. The deadline to submit a nomination is April 26, 2024. The criteria and the nomination form are available here.
SAVE THE DATE – 2024 TCAA Summer Conference
The 2024 Summer Conference at Isla Grande Beach Resort in South Padre Island will take place June 12-14, 2024.
The TCAA Summer Conference is the best CLE program created specifically for municipal lawyers. Earn up to 12.00 hours MCLE credit (including 3.50 ethics hours)! Bring the family to experience everything South Padre Island has to offer and join us as we continue the TCAA tradition of excellence.
For more information, including housing, and to register for this conference, please go to: https://www.tcaasummerconference.org/. Please note that registration opens on March 25, 2024.
Conference Topics Include:
- Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Issues
- Emergency Management
- Sovereign Citizens
- Revitalizing Cities: Tools for Innovative Development
- Condemnation and Multi-Agency TxDOT Projects
- Ethics
- And more!
TCAA Paralegal Program
The Texas City Attorneys Association (TCAA) is excited to offer its third webinar in its Paralegal Program. This webinar will cover code enforcement and will take place on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. This course has been approved for 1 hour of CLE credit by the State Bar of Texas Paralegal Division. The course is free for TCAA members and $40 for nonmembers.
Click here to register. Please email Miguel Martinez at miguel@tml.org for questions.
IMLA Request For Assistance: Compensation Report Survey.
IMLA has created a Compensation Report Survey to help provide a tool for cities with budgetary responsibilities and bench-marking. The Compensation Report is the result of research and analysis conducted by IMLA that culminates in an approximately 85-100 page report related to local government attorney and support staff salaries and other internal metrics related to law office management. The report includes salary data for 26 job classifications, including both attorney and support staff positions, and the data is ultimately broken down in a variety of ways including by size and geographic region.
The success of the report depends on generating a large volume of responses. Your responses will be used to create a salary management tool for local government attorneys that you can use to support your budget. If you fully complete the survey, you will receive the results of the survey absolutely free.
The pricing structure for the report is:
IMLA Members who complete the survey – FREE
IMLA Members who do NOT complete the survey – $199
IMLA Nonmembers who complete the survey – FREE
IMLA Nonmembers who do NOT complete the survey – $499
Be on the safe side and take the survey! You never know when you may want the results and why pay for them when they can be FREE?
Take the survey here.
TCAA Online Membership Directory
Looking to find the contact information for a fellow TCAA member? You can find it using the TCAA membership directory, available here.
IMLA Membership
Membership with IMLA doesn’t just mean discounts to their events. It’s much more than that. Click here to view a quick video about IMLA membership.
Continuing Legal Education
2023 Fall Conference, 2023 Summer Conference, 2024 Riley Fletcher Seminar, and Paralegal Program Webinars
These TCAA online seminars are FREE, allowing TCAA members who are city attorneys, assistant city attorneys, or attorneys who regularly practice municipal law to view the videos from the conferences in a single–session format. Viewing a session allows attorneys to receive participatory CLE credit with the State Bar. To view these seminars, please visit tcaaonlineseminars.org. (Use the case-sensitive password “FreeCLE” to gain access to the sessions.)
If you would like to have an article considered for publication in the TCAA newsletter, please send your request to Amber McKeon-Mueller at amber@tml.org.