Three finalists, including two Juneau residents, are scheduled to be interviewed by the Juneau Assembly this week for the city attorney’s job currently held by Robert Palmer, who announced in May he is departing to take a job with an Anchorage law firm.
The interviews will include a simulated presentation about an issue by the finalists to Assembly members on Wednesday — much as would occur during a regular meeting — followed by formal interviews of the candidates on Thursday, said Dallas Hargrave, director of human resources and risk management for the City and Borough of Juneau, in an interview Monday.
Both sessions will be open to the public in the Assembly Chambers and online via Zoom, although a portion of the formal interviews will be conducted in executive session, according to a CBJ announcement published Monday.
The three finalists were selected from six people who applied for the job in a nationwide search, although two dropped out early in the process, Hargrave said.
“I think that in a position like this, that requires membership to the Bar Association and municipal law experience, that in this labor market it’s about what I was expecting,” he said.
The two Juneau-based finalists are Assistant Municipal Attorney Emily Wright and Foghorn Law Office owner/attorney Megan Costello who is based in Douglas. The other finalist is Rebecca Convery, associate deputy general counsel for the U.S. Army Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C., whose previous experience includes working as an assistant attorney general for the State of Alaska.
On Wednesday night each of the finalists will participate in 20-minute “assessment exercises” scheduled to start at 5:15 p.m., Hargrave said.
“They’ll be tasked with writing a kind of legal analysis for the Assembly based on some information and the scenario that we provide them on Wednesday afternoon,” he said. “It’ll be timed, and they’ll only have a certain amount of resources and a certain amount of time to put it together. Then we will provide that written document to the Assembly and those that attend wanting to see the exercise, where they then will verbally present that information that they wrote.”
The presentations will be in alphabetical order by the candidates’ last names with Convery first, followed by Costello and Wright, Hargrave said. The Zoom link for Wednesday’s session is juneau.zoom.us/j/87388927735.
The Zoom link for Wednesday’s assessment session is juneau.zoom.us/j/87388927735. The Zoom link for Thursday’s interviews is juneau.zoom.us/j/85125938847, with separate interviews scheduled at 5:15 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. with 15-minute breaks in between. The interviews will also be in alphabetical order.
“Approximately halfway through each interview, the Assembly will recess into Executive Session for the remainder of the interviews,” the CBJ announcement states. “The Assembly will then return into open session for the next interview.”
The announcement also notes “members of the local bar, members of CBJ boards and commissions that work with the City Attorney, and the general public are invited to two different events that are part of the Assembly’s selection process and will be able to submit comment cards that will be reviewed by the Assembly,” the announcement states.
Hargrave said Assembly members will determine on Thursday night if they are voting to hire a new municipal attorney that same evening or waiting until a future date. The listed salary for the job is $175,000 a year, subject to negotiation, while Palmer currently makes just over $200,000.
The biographies of the three candidates (and links to their submitted resumes) as provided by CBJ:
• Convery: Currently employed as associate deputy general counsel for the U.S. Army Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C. Her previous employment includes working as an assistant attorney general for the State of Alaska, and as a city or county attorney for communities in Montana. She has a juris doctor from the University of Montana School of Law and a master of laws degree from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. After graduating law school, she served as a law clerk for Justice John Warner of the Montana Supreme Court.
• Costello: Currently an owner/attorney for the Foghorn Law Office in Douglas, where she represents cities across Southeast Alaska in addition to providing other legal services. Her prior legal experience includes working for CBJ as an assistant municipal attorney, where she served as the chief legal officer at Bartlett Regional Hospital. She received her juris doctor from Lewis and Clark Law School and served as a judicial clerk for the Dillingham Superior Court after graduation from law school. She grew up in Kodiak and has lived in Juneau since 2013.
• Wright: Currently employed as an assistant municipal attorney for CBJ. Her prior experience includes working for the Alaska Court System and the state departments of Law and Administration. She has a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Alaska Southeast and a juris doctor from the University of Colorado Law School. She served as a law clerk for the Denver District Court after law school. She has lived in Juneau most recently since 2011.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
