Concord to Bid Farewell to City Attorney Labadie

- City Staff

City Attorney Craig Labadie has announced that he plans to leave his position at the City of Concord and go into semi-retirement at the end of the year. The Concord City Council has selected Senior Assistant Attorney Mark Coon as acting City Attorney until a permanent replacement is selected.  A formal agreement confirming his appointment will be brought before the City Council in January.

“The City has been very fortunate to have Craig serve as our City Attorney,” said Mayor Ron Leone. “He has guided the City through many complex legal issues during his tenure, and we wish him well in his new endeavors.”

Labadie, who has served as City Attorney since 2000, will continue working as a part-time legal consultant for Bay Area cities.  He has accepted an offer from the City of Albany to be their first appointed City Attorney.

“It has truly been an honor and a privilege to serve as the Concord City Attorney for the past 11 years, and I have enjoyed working with the many dedicated employees who provide quality services to the Concord community,” he said.

Before coming to Concord, Labadie was a partner in the former McDonough, Holland & Allen law firm, having founded their Bay Area office in 1989.  In addition to handling litigation as special counsel for numerous Northern California cities, he served as contract City Attorney for Hercules, Mill Valley, Sausalito and Novato at various times in the 1990s.  In the 1980s, he worked on the legislative staff for the League of California Cities, and also handled land use and municipal law matters while employed with the law firms of Bingham McCutchen in Walnut Creek and Rutan & Tucker in Costa Mesa. He also spent one year as a research attorney for a California Supreme Court justice.  He graduated from the King Hall School of Law at the University of California, Davis in 1981.

Coon has been with the City of Concord since 2002. His current areas of oversight include personnel and employment matters, police practices, risk management, public works and representation of the City in civil litigation. Before coming to the City, he worked as a litigation associate with the Kirtland and Packard Law Firm in Los Angeles, as a litigation associate in the Walnut Creek office of Carroll Burdick and Mc Donough, and as a Senior Litigation Associate with the Walnut Creek law firm of Archer Norris.  While at Archer Norris, he represented clients in employment, environmental, insurance coverage, land use, business litigation and tort liability matters. Coon received his B.A. in Political Science/English from UCLA in 1983, his Juris Doctor Degree from the UC Hastings College of the Law in 1986, and was admitted to the California bar in 1987.