Law Director

Responsibilities

The city director of law shall be elected for a term of four years . . . [and] shall be an elector of the city (ORC 733.49). No person shall be eligible to the office of city director of law who is not an attorney at law, admitted to practice in this state (ORC 733.50).

The city director of law shall prepare all contracts, bonds, and other instruments in writing in which the city is concerned, and shall serve the several directors and officers provided in Title VII of the Revised Code as legal counsel and attorney (ORC 733.51).

The city director of law, when required to do so by resolution of the legislative authority of the city, shall prosecute or defend on behalf of the city, all complaints, suits, and controversies in which the city is a party, and such other suits, matters, and controversies as he is, by resolution or ordinance, directed to prosecute. He shall not be required to prosecute any action before the mayor of the city for the violation of an ordinance without first advising such action (ORC 733.53).

When an officer of a city entertains doubts concerning the law in any matter before him in his official capacity, and desires the opinion of the city director of law, he shall clearly state to the director of law, in writing, the question upon which the opinion is desired, and thereupon the director of law shall, within a reasonable time, reply orally or in writing to such inquiry. The right conferred upon such officers by this section extends to the legislative authority of the city, and to each board provided for in Title VII of the Revised Code (ORC 733.54).

Current Law Director

C. Brooke Zellers was elected as law director effective January 1, 2000. He has maintained a private practice in Salem since 1993. He worked for the Columbiana County Prosecutor's Office, serving as an Assistant County Prosecutor from May 1995 until December 2004. He is a 1985 graduate of Salem High School, a 1993 Graduate of University of Akron School of Law with juris doctorate, and he earned a bachelor's degree in environmental design in 1989 from Miami University.