Municipal Association: No Lawyer Needed for Executive Session

Municipal Association of South Carolina Executive Director Miriam Hair said Saturday that municipal council members can meet in executive session for legal advice without the town's attorney present.

The issue arose last week when town council's public safety committee adjourned into executive session for "legal matters," but without the town's attorney.

The executive session also came under fire for not giving sufficient explanation of the adjournment, a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Bailey has since said that he may have "erred on the side of brevity." The explanation was amended during the committee meeting from "legal matters" to "legal matters pertaining to Palmetto Behavioral Health." 

But questions remained over discussing legal matters without the town attorney present and if that too was a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Read the act here.

"It says you can go into executive session for legal advice; it doesn't go any further than that," Hair said. "Nowhere in the law does it say (legal advice) has to come directly from the attorney during the executive session."

She said it would become cost-prohibitive for many municipalities to have the town's attorney present at every meeting, especially committee meetings.

The Municipal Association of South Carolina "represents and serves the state's incorporated 270 municipalities" and offers "the services, programs and tools that will give municipal officials the knowledge, experience and tools for enabling the most efficient and effective operation of their municipalities in the complex world of municipal government," according to its website.