City Attorney

The City Attorney represents city departments, officials, and employees on matters involving city business. Attorneys in the office cannot give legal advice or provide legal representation to private citizens. Due to ethical reasons, the City Attorney's Office cannot answer questions concerning laws, ordinances, and regulations. Questions concerning laws and ordinances may be referred to the specific departments.

The City Attorney's Office:

• Provides legal advice to the mayor, members of the city council, city manager, and to each of the city’s departments
• Advocates on the city’s behalf in federal and state courts, the General Assembly, and before quasi-judicial bodies
• Reviews contracts that the city enters each year and advises employees administering those contracts as issues arise
• Represents the city’s interests in working with property owners, contractors, private citizens, and others who raise concerns about the city’s actions

Meredith T. Everhart

City Council appointed Meredith T. Everhart as City Attorney effective May 2, 2023. Ms. Everhart graduated from North Carolina State University in December of 1995, and then attended UNC School of Law, where she received her law degree in 1999. Her husband is a fellow N.C. State graduate and a mechanical engineer. They have two adult daughters and have lived in Wilmington since 1999.

Following law school, Ms. Everhart went to work with the New Hanover County District Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor in the Domestic Violence Unit. She became heavily involved in domestic violence issues, with six years of service on the Board of Directors for Domestic Violence Shelter and Services of Wilmington. While she was an Assistant District Attorney in New Hanover County from 1999 until 2003, Ms. Everhart prosecuted a range of cases in addition to domestic violence, including district court and superior court cases, DWI’s, property crimes, and drug offenses.

Ms. Everhart left the district attorney’s office to work for three years in the private sector for a Wilmington firm that specialized in workers compensation and insurance defense matters, before returning to work for the State of North Carolina as an ADA in the Brunswick County DA’s Office. As an ADA in Brunswick County, Ms. Everhart specialized in child sex offense cases for 6 years, working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement officers in the prosecution of those crimes.

In August of 2012, Ms. Everhart left the Brunswick County DA’s Office to come to work for the City of Wilmington. She was initially hired as an Assistant City Attorney advising the Wilmington Police Department and Wilmington Fire Department, as well as handling all of the employment law matters for the city. She was promoted to Deputy City Attorney in 2014 and has represented the City of Wilmington in matters before both state and federal courts, the N.C. Department of Employment Security, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the City of Wilmington Civil Service Commission.