Peter Murphy

Peter is an attorney and of counsel to Peterson, Johnson & Murray – Chicago LLC. In that role, he provides legal services to the Villages of Oak Lawn, Tinley Park, and North Riverside. He also currently serves as Village Attorney for Posen, Illinois, and Special Counsel for Midlothian, Illinois.

Prior to joining PJM, he was Senior Counsel at Montana & Welch, and a Partner at Tressler, LLP. Peter is past City Attorney for Blue Island, Illinois, as well as interim Senior Counsel for Naperville, Illinois. He has an extensive background in local government law including providing transactional and litigation advice to villages, libraries, and school districts.
Peter has also litigated numerous matters on behalf of cities, villages, libraries, and school districts. These matters include zoning and ordinance litigation, contract disputes, IEPA matters, IDHR and EEOC defense, workers compensation and tort immunity issues. He has represented clients before state and federal trial courts, administrative agencies and appellate courts.

As part of his work as chief legal officer for numerous local governments, Peter is lead counsel on bargaining agreements with a variety of unions such as FOP, ICOP, IAFF and AFSCME. In addition to successfully negotiating and drafting these agreements, Peter has also arbitrated these matters before the ILRB (interest and grievance arbitrations). His experience includes resolving grievances at all levels and defending grievance arbitrations. Peter has drafted and revised personnel policies and handbooks, including updates and compliance with associated State and Federal requirements. Peter advises his clients on a variety of legal issues, including tax and appropriations, land use and annexation, elections, FOIA, board procedures and voting requirements, ethics, contracts for bid, tax objections and prevailing wage. Peter has lectured before the NBI, IML and IAPD on various topics including ethics, tort immunity, workers compensation and loss prevention.