The Greensboro City Council voted unanimously to hire Chuck Watts as the city attorney at the regular meeting Tuesday, May 21 in the Council Chamber.
Watts will begin working on June 1 and receive a salary of $190,000 per year plus executive compensation of $6,000.
The city attorney is one of two city employees who is hired by and works directly for the City Council. The other is City Manager David Parrish.
Watts has served as the Deputy Secretary and General Counsel for the North Carolina Department of Transportation since 2017.
Watts graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1977 and from Howard University School of Law in 1985. He also has an MBA from Indiana University.
Watts has had a varied law career working at large firms and small firms, for the government, as a corporate attorney and as a law professor.
Watts practiced at the Covington and Burling law firm at the time one of the largest in Washington, DC. He was on the faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Law. He has practiced with law firms in Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Durham and also taught at the North Carolina Central University Law School. He served as the senior vice president and general counsel for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Watts has also spent time practicing law in his own law firm and he currently resides in Durham.
Watts will replace former City Attorney Tom Carruthers who resigned Oct. 4, 2018 after serving as city attorney since Sept. 2014. Carruthers is currently an assistant Guilford County attorney.
Jim Hoffman has been serving as interim city attorney since October 2018.
