Organization and Functions of the Dallas City Attorney's Office

With 87 attorneys, the Dallas City Attorney's Office is among the largest municipal legal departments in the nation. The size of Dallas' legal department is exceeded by only a handful of cities, including New York , Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston and Phoenix.

In many respects, the role of City Attorney in a large metropolitan area is analogous to both that of general counsel of a corporation and of managing partner of a large private law firm. Like other large city attorney offices, the Dallas City Attorney's Office provides transactional and advisory services as general counsel, and litigation services, handling the bulk of lawsuits in-house. The General Counsel Division, the Litigation Division, and the Community Advocacy Division of the City Attorney's Office are each divided into several sections.