Inside Municipal Law: Matthew Pentz on Serving as a Town’s In-House Counsel of 190,000 People

In this episode of The Legal Leaders Podcast, host David Lancelot talks with Matthew Pentz, Deputy Town Attorney at the Town of Cary, North Carolina, about what it actually looks like to be in-house counsel for a local government – one of the largest, least-talked-about areas of in-house legal practice in the country.

They discuss:

• Serving as corporate counsel for a “municipal corporation” spanning 14 departments
• Sunshine laws, public meetings, and public records requests are issues that private-sector counsel never face
• Finding his way into municipal law through IMLA and a non-traditional career path

Tune in for an unfiltered conversation on running a legal department for a town of 190,000 people, navigating sunshine laws and public records in the age of AI and wearables, and how a “non-traditional” law school path led to more than a decade in municipal government practice.