Associate City attorney Karen Moses, who began working with the city’s law office last year, jokingly described a typical day in the office as chaos.
“I tease Malak (Heiny), and I always say it’s like walking into a tornado every day because you have no idea what’s going to come in the door and what someone needs you to do,” she said.
Attorneys can cover a vast area of legal categories, but typically individuals stick to one specialty at a private firm. City attorney Malak Heiny and two associates work in numerous categories to handle legal proceedings for the city of Fort Wayne.
Moses, Heiny and Associate City attorney Larry Shine worked at private law firms before joining the department. Moses said she and Shine came from the same private firm after decades of experience there.
“So we have that experience from back then, but it’s an entirely different world – public practice,” she said. “Public service, private practice is like night and day.”
Shine, who joined the team 15 years ago, said the department has an extensive number of responsibilities that no one can plan how the day will go.
“You can’t anticipate, and you just have to pivot and be ready to deal with it,” he said.
The three-person team’s work can vary from providing legal input on human resource matters or contracts for more than 20 city departments including Community Development and Parks and Recreation. They also help handle lawsuits filed against the city.
Heiny said they had 37 lawsuits filed against the city last year, but those are not the only ones the office is handling at a time.
“We also have ongoing lawsuits from the year before and from the year before that, so we could have 80 lawsuits going on at one time,” she said. “And some we settle and some we don’t.”
On Dec. 20, Shine said his day included working on something for the city’s municipal trails network development and also on a conservation easement to be granted to the city so that maintenance can be done on an area subject to flooding and area erosion in the morning. Then in the afternoon, he asked citizens why they did not get their dogs vaccinations on time as required by a city ordinance.
“That’s variety,” he said.
Heiny said there is a corporation attorney who is Tim Haffner, who advises the mayor and works in private practice on a retainer position. Although the office does assist Mayor Tom Henry’s office, the law department does not work with them directly.
“The city attorney is a position that basically runs the legal department for the city of Fort Wayne,” she said. “We handle all of the legal issues in every other department in the city, so the parks department, community development, police, fire, redevelopment, animal care and control. So all the city departments come to us for legal advice, help with contracts, help with policies.”
Heiny describes responsibilities
Heiny was appointed city attorney in April 2022 after working as an associate since 2013. She said the department has multiple responsibilities including being the legal representation for handling tort claims, litigation and ordinance violations.
Ordinances are city laws, which Heiny said some people do not realize the city has its own laws in addition to state and federal rules.
Heiny said it took her a year to feel comfortable working in the law department because of the broad topics.
“When you’re in private practice, you usually do one thing, you do family law, you do criminal law, civil litigation,” she said. “We do everything except criminal law.”
Heiny said the position has a learning curve with understanding the police system, neighborhood code, unsafe building law and zoning codes.
Shine said they each have a category they primarily handle.
He said they are not directly assigned any task within that category, but having different areas of expertise is how they decided would work best for the office.
Heiny said the office mainly hires outside lawyers from Fort Wayne firms to represent the city in lawsuits.
Heiny said the setup is similar to how a corporation does it. The corporation – or in this case the city – has the legal department handle internal affairs and hires outside counsel for most litigation in lawsuits.
“There’s just no way we could do all of it,” she said. “There really is just no way. We’d have to hire five more lawyers to do it, so it’s more cost-efficient for us to (hire outside counsel).”
Shine said bigger cities have larger legal departments and are able to do more work internally, but not Fort Wayne.
“This is the size that we are, and we do as much as we can,” he said.
Heiny has emphasized the need to do as much as possible internally since she became the city attorney.
In-house expertise on handling bonds
Shine typically handles bonds because of his experience of previously working on the topic.
A bond is a loan with an investor rather than a bank and a way for governments or corporations to raise money for projects. Shine said the city primarily handles two type of bonds. In one type of bond, the city is the one who owes money borrowed for developing a building or improving a street. The other type of bond is when the city allows a developer or company to take advantage or benefit from Fort Wayne’s status under the Internal Revenue Code. This gives the city the ability to issue bonds but not be liable for them – the developer or company would be.
Heiny said Shine’s expertise has allowed the department to not outsource attorneys for all of the work for bond cases.
Shine said he handles the paperwork internally for bonds to prepare the deal, so it can be issued.
Heiny said Shine’s wealth of knowledge is a huge benefit to the city.
“The services that Larry does with the bonds – most cities don’t do that internally,” she said. “They just give it all to outside counsel because it is very complex, and it’s very specialized. But Larry already has that knowledge.”
Moses typically handles litigation, which is the process of taking legal action in court as a legal case or lawsuit.
Heiny said Moses’ expertise of 30 years in litigation is a huge benefit as well.
“We’ve never had somebody on staff like that,” she said. “That is able to push back on things like we’ve never done before. That’s able to look at lawsuits from a different perspective, someone who’s been on the other side, or who knows the litigation process better than anyone on staff has ever in the past.”
No more rolling over for frivolous suitsWith the benefit of having Shine and Moses on staff, Heiny said when she became City attorney she wanted to make residents aware that they won’t just get money out of suing the city anymore. She said the city used to settle lawsuits more frequently before she was promoted.
“People look at the city as like deep pockets,” she said. “ ‘Oh, if anything happens to me, I’m going to sue the city, and they’re going to pay me a bunch of money.’ We will not, and we are diligently working on sending messages that we’re not going to pay on these frivolous lawsuits because you think we did something.”
Heiny said there is a perception that the city will roll over when facing these lawsuits.
“We will not roll over,” she said. “There’s a new sheriff in town. Between the three of us. We are not settling cases for what they used to be settled for. We’re really pushing back now.”
However, that does not mean the city will not be accountable when it is in the wrong, she added.
Moses said the city will receive tort claims in which 90% of the time, the city’s not liable for the situation. Tort claims are a legal act accusing an entity to be liable for injury
“It’s just the way the law is written,” she said.
Citizens can file tort claims if they believe the city was negligent in any way, Heiny said. The city has a risk department and committee that reviews all the tort claims.
Moses said tort claims can include a fallen tree limb causing damage to houses or vehicles or if someone trip on broken sidewalk and injures themselves. The tort claim committee investigates these claims such as if the sidewalk is a problem and what the city may need to do depending on if there is an issue.
“We have the (weekly committee) meeting to discuss all the facts and determine whether or not the city has responsibility – who should be liable for it,” she said.
Despite the intense work the only three-person team puts in daily, Heiny said they love what they do.
“We love working together,” she said. “We enjoy the work that we do. We’re proud of the work that we do. We’re proud of working for the mayor and the citizens.”
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