Government Relations

Wildman Harrold’s Government Relations Practice blends a keen understanding of governmental and political processes with a realistic appreciation of competing interests and political realities.

Our attorneys serve as counsel to local governments’ various boards, committees, and departments in the preparation and negotiation of annexation agreements, economic development, risk pools, election law, general municipal law, and litigation. The group also represents governmental officials and private clients in their dealings with local, state, and federal governmental agencies.

The firm represents public and private sector clients in land use matters, regularly acting as bond counsel, and in civil rights litigation and general litigation involving governmental bodies. Firm members also assist in the formation of tax increment finance districts, represent corporate clients in negotiating tax abatements obtaining state and local economic development incentives, and handle government regulation matters, including defense of investigations initiated by governmental agencies and various lobbying activities.

• Successfully represented a church before the City of Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals and obtained a special use permit to allow the church to operate on the south side of the City. Subsequently obtained relief from the Cook County Board of Review and the Illinois Department of Revenue, causing the church’s property to be exempt from real estate taxes.
  
• Represented numerous auto dealers in negotiating economic incentive agreements with suburban municipalities.
  
• As counsel to villages in the south and west suburbs of Chicago, the firm drafts ordinances, attends meetings of the villages’ Boards of Trustees, handles zoning, annexation and other land use and economic development matters, and regularly advises the villages’ elected officials and department heads on other legal matters affecting their village.
  
• Serves as counsel to south suburban economic development corporations servicing the municipal and corporate needs of a 50 community area.