Michael McMahan’s job sounds easy. As the city attorney in Chattanooga, he’s responsible for handling the town’s legal work. That seems simple, especially for a municipality the size of Chattanooga. Write a few contracts, settle a couple of lawsuits, and call it a day at 5 p.m. But McMahan’s job is anything but easy.
Chattanooga is actually a big business, one that does a couple hundred million dollars worth of transactions a year, which means writing piles of contracts, handling dozens of lawsuits, and rarely calling it a day before the rest of the people who work downtown have vacated its streets and parking garages. “We prepare all of the ordinances, resolutions and regulatory matters that go before the City Council. We provide contracting services for the city’s activities. We help the city with personnel issues. We also help the utilities with their day-to-day operations and with any environmental issues that crop up. We don’t work 40-hour work weeks here,” McMahan says.
Not only does McMahan and the six attorneys who work under his supervision handle a massive amount of varied legal work, the matters with which they deal to tend to be complex. “The City of Chattanooga is a regulatory agency, so we must comply with the U.S. and state Constitutions. We must also comply with all of the federal and state statutes that apply to our activities,” McMahan says.
Given the scope of his work and the supervisory nature of his position, McMahan spends most of his time in meetings. This is especially true of Tuesdays, which are perhaps his most grueling day each week. “Tuesdays are devoted to City Council work. We start off at 9 a.m. with the agenda session, and then by two or three o’clock, we start the committee meetings, which go until about seven or eight at night,” he says.
Being the boss not only keeps McMahan in meetings, it also keeps him out of the courtroom. A certified civil trial specialist, McMahan nonetheless has to hand most of the city’s trial work over to his subordinates. And since the City of Chattanooga is unable to compromise on much of the litigation it faces, there’s plenty to go around. “We can compromise on some cases, such as personal injury or property damage cases, but if a case is raising a question about the inherent authority of the city government, it has to be litigated. As a governmental entity, we can’t compromise to the extent that a private corporation can,” McMahan says.
If McMahan is under a lot of pressure, it doesn’t show. He smiles a lot as he talks, and his tone is down-to-earth. As he changes gears to talk about how he became a lawyer, his cadence becomes even more relaxed. “I was born in Tennessee, but I grew up in West Virginia. When it came time for college, I went to [the University of Tennessee at Knoxville]. I graduated from UT law school in 1968,” McMahan says, using broad strokes to paint a picture of his past.
McMahan chose law after eliminating two other career possibilities: engineering and business. Following law school, McMahan served four years in the U.S. Army. While working in the JAG Corps at Fort Bragg, he climbed the ranks to chief of military justice.
Upon completing his time in the Army, McMahan started looking for a job. When Chattanooga City Attorney Eugene Collins offered him a position as a trial attorney, he jumped at the chance. “I started with the city attorney’s office in 1973. At that time, we had a private practice, and our offices were in the Pioneer Building. I represented corporations and individuals, and did divorces, wills, and personal injury lawsuits. We had a diversified practice,” McMahan says.
Over the years, McMahan did less and less trial work and started handling more and more administrative matters. He became city attorney in 2009 following Randall Nelson’s retirement. Since the city attorney’s term runs concurrent with the mayor’s, McMahan has a job until 2014. McMahan says he enjoys being city attorney because of the unique nature of the challenges he and his team face. “On any given day, I might have to deal with a question I’ve never tackled before. I like digging into the books and figuring out the answer.”
McMahan has been married for 42 years, or, to paraphrase his view of marriage, the same lady had put up with McMahan for 42 years. The couple has one daughter, a lawyer in New York City. To relax, McMahan helps his wife with her gardening and spends time bird watching. “Chattanooga is one of the premiere bird watching places in Tennessee. We have over 300 species of birds in Hamilton County,” McMahan, a member of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, says. McMahan is also active at Brainerd Methodist Church, where he serves as a substitute teacher and on the staff parish committee.
In 2010, the Chattanooga Bar Foundation recognized McMahan’s many years of dedicated service as a lawyer and as a contributing member of the Chatt local community by making him a Bar Fellow. While others are looking back on his career, McMahan, who’s 67, is still looking forward. He has a job to do for at least three more years, and although he’d like to travel more, he has no plans to retire. Still, he admits he’s approaching the end of his career.
“I’m over the hump. But we’ll see what happens. I’m not ready to stop working yet, even though I have been thinking about Machu Piccu and the Galapagos.” Today is Monday, though, so McMahan will be spending the rest of the day thinking about the ordinances, resolutions and regulatory matters that will be going before the City Council on Tuesday.
Then, on Wednesday, he and his staff will turn their attention to the contracts they have to write, the city personnel issues with which they must deal, the utilities that need their help, the litigation that must be handled, and the sundry other tasks that will cross their desks. It sounds easy.