Hi,
Can we hire a consultant through a consulting company for a 1 yr deal
and give them the title "Executive Vice President" and guarantee them
no liability or legal binding? We want to give them this title because
they will be doing essentially the same work as a EVP but they are
worried about liability, etc. I need to have an "authoritative" answer
on this before we can proceed.
thank you!

That is odd, normally consultants are worried by their clients asking
for a guarantee of consequential liability.

In this case the consultant seems to be worried about liability for
the client's potential problems.

Sounds unusual to me.

Actually this is not so odd.  In fact it is QUITE common!

There are many "vice presidents", directors etc ... of companies,
where the person has a limited kind of contractor/consulting
agreement.

The 'consulting agreement' is merely a different financial
relationship between the company and the 'human resource'.  
Provisions for liability and IP ownership must be covered, but these
provisions are not so unusual.  Often executives (or other forms of
talent) sign on with a title and a limited contract as a way of giving
both parties a more convenient way to handle the arrangement (for
instance, almost like a trial period).

In other cases (even more common) the employee, 'on paper' actually
works for a thrid party firm (like 'administaff') and is actually
contracted out to the company as vice president, etc.   Sun
Microsystems, for example, moved thousands of employees to such an
arrangement.

Hope this helps.