City of Edinburg hires new in-house attorney

In what seems to be a growing trend among local municipalities, the City of Edinburg hired its first in-house city attorney during its July 17 meeting, as opposed to its previous long-standing practice of contracting for outside legal services.

The city’s new full-time attorney is Josephine “Josie” Ramirez, who comes to the county seat (Edinburg) by way of McAllen, where she served for a relatively short time as assistant city attorney under City Attorney Isaac Tawil before becoming Edinburg’s top legal eagle.

“As Edinburg transitions to a fulltime, in-house attorney,” said Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza, Jr. “we are looking forward to working with her.”

In addition to her stint with McAllen, Ramirez also previously did legal work with the Hidalgo County DA’s office, and before that, was in private practice.

“She has a lot of experience working with government,” said Garza. “From what I understand, she also did work with Hidalgo County as it transitioned from using an outside attorney to hiring one to work in-house. The city is looking forward to having her lead our city attorney’s office.' Moving to an in-house attorney form of legal representation is more cost effective, said the Edinburg mayor.

“From a legal standpoint, there is just so much activity that we have currently underway inside city hall. Edinburg is now over 100,000 residents, so it almost requires that we have an attorney to be in house, working full time to handle all the legal needs of the city.”

Mayor Garza said the city council will defer to the new city attorney, but will probably end up having an assistant city attorney on board to help out before everything is said and done.

“It’s just the nature of how busy city operations have gotten to be,” he said.

With Darling’s Help

Despite the idea of a city attorney working in house, full time with aW-2 in hand, as opposed to providing legal services to a city on a per-hour contractual basis, the City of McAllen actually employed a full-time, in-house attorney dating all the way back to 1978 when a lawyer named Rush Milam held the position. In fact, when longtime McAllen City Attorney Jim Darling drove into town in 1978, that’s who he initially worked under – Rush Milam.

“He was making $12,000 a year, and I was making $10,000 a year as his assistant,” said Darling. “It wasn’t long after my arrival, though, that Rush left, and the city hired me to replace him. Suddenly, I was making $12,000 a year instead of $10,000.”

For an Air Force veteran who served two combat tours in Viet Nam in 1969 and 1970, flying 130 missions low and slow in the rear of a C-47, besides being a native of the frozen northeast (Rochester, NY), the RGV, with its swaying palms and balmy winters, seemed like heaven when Darling first rolled into town, which only had a population of approximately 60,000 at the time vs. its current number of residents, approximately 145,000.

“That’s why I stayed here, got married, raised a family,” said Darling. “I fell in love with the place, the people.”

Darling left McAllen in 1983 to work for the distinguished law firm of Fulbright and Jaworski.

“They hired me after I negotiated and handled the McAllen Hospital sale to the Methodists Hospital in Dallas.”

Not long after, though, he came back to work as the full-time, in-house McAllen attorney.

“Then l left in about 1985 to work as a partner in a local firm, but kept the title and duties of city attorney, and I had a staff in city hall, which I managed.”

In 1987, Darling started his own firm, had increased the staff inside city hall and had two people working in the law firm who also served as assistant city attorneys.

“In about 1995, I had attorneys and a full staff at city hall, but I still had my law office, and I became an assistant city attorney at the same time with about 10 departments (for which he was responsible).”

Two years later, Darling became the in-house, full-time McAllen city attorney and assistant city manager and closed his outside law practice.

Two years later, it was time for a change. “I left my employment with the City of McAllen in November of 2006 and ran for city commissioner and was elected in May of 2007.”

In 2013 Jim Darling ran un-opposed for mayor, served two terms, retiring from public office in June of 2021, but that didn’t mean he was going to retire.

Today, at the age of 75, with the seeming stamina of a man at least a decade younger, Darling is on multiple city advisory boards, committees, you name it, the guy never slows down.

“To say the least, it has been an interesting career with the city I love (McAllen), and it’s been fun (and exciting and a little challenging). I could not have done it without the great staff and attorneys (both in house and in the law office) with whom I was fortunate enough to work.”

During his long legal career, Jim Darling has worked as city attorney, general or special counsel with the following entities: La Joya, Mission, Alamo, Harlingen, Progresso, Rio Grande City, Mercedes, Hidalgo County, Peñitas, Pharr, the LRGDC, Amigos Del Valle, McAllen ISD, Sharyland ISD, Palmview ISD, Hidalgo County Water District 16, McAllen Public Utility Board, McAllen Housing Authority, South Texas College, “and a few more governmental entities.”

Makes you tired just reading about it.