Cary Colaianni is the City Attorney for Boise, Idaho.  He oversees a 51-person municipal law firm that handles all of the City's criminal and civil matters, as well as advises the Mayor and City Council.  In addition, his office provides criminal misdemeanor prosecution and police advice not only to Boise City, but also to the City of Meridian under contract.

Mr. Colaianni was named City Attorney in September 2004. Over the last four years, he has reorganized the City Attorney's office into five divisions, reorganized office's management structure, and promoted the development of specialty practices, including litigation, land use, transactional, and commercial law. In addition, during his tenure, the Boise City Attorney's Office has transitioned from a paper environment to an office that emphasizes technology in the handling of both criminal and civil matters. Under his management, the office purchased, designed, and implemented a state-of-the-art criminal case management system that handles the office's annual criminal caseload of nearly 30,000 cases and is now overseeing the development of a component within the system to manage civil and administrative matters as well.

Prior to becoming the City Attorney, Mr. Colaianni worked for over 13 years as the senior trial attorney in the Civil Division of the Ada County Prosecutor's Office. He supervised the civil litigation team and litigated a wide variety of cases, including civil rights, torts, and property tax litigation. Mr. Colaianni also provided legal counsel to the Ada County Commissioners and various County departments, represented the County before the State Legislature, and served on a variety of committees and task forces addressing such issues as county jail medical care and juvenile detention services.

In addition to his position at Ada County, Mr. Colaianni represented and consulted with nearly all of Idaho's Counties on cases ranging from property tax litigation to civil rights claims. He has been an active speaker on local government issues, has been published in the Idaho State Bar Advocate, and lectured on various local government issues for the Idaho Prosecuting Attorneys' Association and other organizations.

Prior to joining Ada County in 1992, Mr. Colaianni spent 6 years in private practice with Racine, Olsen, Nye, Cooper, & Budge. Mr. Colaianni is licensed and has practiced before the United States Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and both the State and Federal Courts of Idaho. A 1986 graduate of the University of Idaho law school, Mr. Colaianni also holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a masters in Public Administration from Idaho State University.