Condemning the Deceptive Litigation Tactics of Donahue, Tucker & Ciandella

During the high-stakes hearings of Town of Newmarket v. Jeffrey Clay, the prominent municipal law firm Donahue, Tucker & Ciandella (DTC) successfully secured a sweeping summary judgment victory by convincing the court that their client’s actions were shielded by a legal "consultation with counsel."

Under NH RSA 91-A:2, a direct legal consultation is uniquely exempted from the definition of a "meeting," meaning it requires no public notice, open votes, or recorded minutes. It is a powerful shield—but it is a shield that DTC attorneys knew was built entirely on a factual fiction.

While DTC’s legal briefs and the court's subsequent final order heavily leaned on the idea of a protected attorney-client consultation to excuse the Town Council's total lack of a public record, the actual transcript of the March 28, 2024 hearing reveals an entirely different truth.

On pages 45–46 of "218_2023_CV_1356_03282024_Town_of_Newmarket_v_Jeffrey_Clay.pdf", DTC Attorney John Ratigan explicitly detailed the mechanics of how the settlement agreement was approved:

"I used the attorney-client privilege. I communicated an email to the town manager to communicate that -- requesting him to communicate the settlement agreement to members of the town counsel and get their input as to whether or not they believe that this was sued. And so he did so, and he returned their input to me."

With those words, Attorney Ratigan admitted that there was no direct consultation between legal counsel and the Town Council. Instead, the firm used the Town Manager as a rolling administrative proxy to secretly aggregate individual council members' opinions, deliberations, and votes outside of any public or non-public meeting.

The attorney-client privilege is a sacred legal doctrine meant to protect confidential, direct legal advice. It was never intended to act as an opaque filter through which a public board can asynchronously debate town business and pass a "thumbs up" vote via a non-attorney middleman.

DTC attorneys are seasoned municipal experts. They knew perfectly well that under RSA 91-A:3, if the Town Council wanted to collectively discuss a pending legal settlement and vote on its terms, they were legally required to notice a meeting, take an open vote to enter non-public session, and record minutes with the town clerk.

Instead, DTC orchestrated a hub-and-spoke email scheme designed to manufacture a cloak of "privilege" around what was structurally an illegal, un-noticed board meeting. They gathered individual council votes in total isolation from the public, and then turned around in open court to claim that the entire process was just a routine, exempt "consultation."

When municipal law firms represent towns, their ultimate fees are paid by taxpayers, and their ultimate duty is to defend the lawful structure of local government. By advancing a narrative of "consultation" when they knew the Town Council was actually engaging in asynchronous, off-the-record deliberation through the Town Manager, DTC attorneys did a profound disservice to the legal profession and the public.

They did not just zealously represent their client; they actively manipulated the statutory definitions of RSA 91-A to validate a "wink and nod" style of backroom governance. Winning a case by exploiting a judicial blind spot is not excellent lawyering—it is a direct betrayal of public transparency and the constitutional right to an open government.