Josephine County Online-Legal Counsel Homepage

Josephine County Legal Counsel 500 NW Sixth St. Dept. 13
Grants Pass, OR 97526
Phone: (541) 474-5226
Hours: Open Monday through Friday, 8AM – Noon & 1PM – 5PM. Law Library (2nd floor of the same building) Hours are: Mon-Fri: 8AM – 5PM.

Legal Counsel

Wally Hicks, Legal Counsel

Josephine County, like most medium and large sized cities and counties, employs a Legal Counsel. The Legal Counsel is the attorney for the County, and does not represent individual clients.* Josephine County is the only county in Oregon with an elected Legal Counsel.

Wally Hicks is your County Legal Counsel. After being elected, he was sworn into office on January 5, 2015.
The mission of the Josephine County Legal Counsel is to provide representation and legal guidance to the County regarding matters that pertain to the community as a whole. The general goals of the office include:

Protect the County from liability.
Effectively and efficiently handle routine legal matters (public contracts, leases, lawsuits, questions, research, etc) for County government.
Provide as many viable legal options to decision-makers as possible. The legal Counsel does not decide policy, but instead helps achieve the goals of policy makers and the electorate as a whole.
Provide guidance that conforms at all times to the letter and spirit of the law.
Appropriately prioritize the work to satisfy realistic deadlines.
Be available, approachable, and accurate. We do not promise to achieve perfection, but we pledge to pursue it.
Administer an effective law library for the benefit of the citizens and the local legal community.
Administer the County’s property agreements.

The office of the Legal Counsel works very hard to achieve these goals. Besides the Legal Counsel, the office includes one other practicing attorney, a Legal Administrator who also does paralegal work, a Legal Secretary, the County Property Manager, and the County Law Librarian.

Click on these links to:

*Find a lawyer from the Oregon State Bar referral Service: (http://www.osbar.org/public/ris/#ris)

Contact Legal Aid: (http://oregonlawhelp.org//resource/oregon-legal-aid-offices/AAD124B7-27D3-46CD-AFAE-EC92F369677C#Josephine)

Read the Josephine County Charter: (http://www.co.josephine.or.us/Files/Josephine%20County%20Charter.pdf)

Read the Rural Land Development Code: (http://www.co.josephine.or.us/SIB/files/Complete%20Code%202005.pdf)

Obtain opinions from Oregon’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeals: (http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/Pages/OpinionsSC.aspx)

Search and read Oregon Statutes (laws passed by the Legislature): (https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/)

Search and read Oregon Administrative Rules (laws passed by state agencies and departments): (http://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/oregon_administrative_rules.aspx)

Obtain opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court: (http://www.supremecourt.gov/)

Obtain opinions from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: (https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/)

Search and read Federal Statutes (laws passed by Congress): (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text)

Search and read Federal Administrative Rules (laws passed by Federal agencies and departments): (https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR)