Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: handling legal matters

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA, almost 30 years in.

This thread seems to have brought up questions regarding decision making, 
objections to proposed expenditures, and such.
The title made me think to offer advice about more "legal" matters, like if the 
association is being sued, or instituting legal procedures against a member. 
Not a common occurence, but it can happen. 

We recently did a complete overhaul of our legal documents (Bylaws, CC&Rs, 
regulations) to meet current State requirements for HOAs. Formerly, everyone 
was on the Board. But we realized that in so doing, if we had a conflict with a 
Member (and we do have a litigious member) we couldn't meet privately with a 
lawyer about it, as even the problem person was on our Board. So, while clearly 
intending to continue to conduct our governance as we always had done, we 
designated our 5-member elected-for-2-year-terms Steering Committee to legally 
be our Board. As such, THEY could, if necessary, meet in closed session, and 
get legal advice without it having to be public. In everyday life, they 
continue to be a coordinating committee, "as directed by the Membership", 
working with the Facilitation team to plan our monthly community meetings. But 
we are now better equipped to deal with legal confrontations, should they 
occur. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau