RALEIGH -- The law firm that has represented the Wake County school board for decades is now in danger of being fired on short notice as the system analyzes its annual million-dollar-plus legal bills.
Meanwhile, a former chairman of the Wake County Republican Party has proposed that his firm take over the legal work for the GOP-backed school board majority.
Board Chairman Ron Margiotta said Wednesday that the board's recently renewed contract with Raleigh firm Tharrington Smith allows for termination with 30 days' notice. Margiotta said he has seen, but not given serious consideration to, a recent proposal by former Wake GOP Chairman David Robinson to hire Robinson's firm, Nexsen Pruet, to become the board's new attorney.
Robinson was an organizer of Take Wake Schools Back, a political action committee that worked to elect members of the school board majority. But he said he was moved to act when the board majority hired Thomas Farr, another longtime Republican lawyer, to prepare a report analyzing the panel's relationship with Tharrington Smith and other legal firms.
"A school board that has to hire a law firm to find out what its legal relationships are is giving a cry for help," Robinson said Wednesday. "The purpose was to open a dialogue if the school board was interested."
Robinson, chairman of the Republican Party of North Carolina's 13th Congressional District, said his longtime political involvement would not hinder his intention of using better organization and technology to improve the board's legal representation. However, if successful, his firm would replace Tharrington Smith, whose work for the board has been criticized by some Republicans for the role of firm founder Wade Smith as former chairman of the state Democratic Party.
Although the school board is officially nonpartisan, it has seen increasing involvement from political parties in recent years, a situation that member Carolyn Morrison wishes would change.
"I wish we could get politics out of all this," said Morrison, a Democrat and member of the board minority. "I think it's better if we could be above the fray of political action."
In a letter to Margiotta copied to all board members, Robinson suggested that he serve as an ombudsman between his firm and the board, with another Nexsen Pruet lawyer designated to handle aspects such as the timing and "development and design" of board meetings, parliamentary questions and referrals of legal questions and matters to the right lawyer at the right price.
Margiotta said there are no plans in the near future to replace Tharrington Smith. But he wouldn't guarantee that the board would keep the firm for the entire length of its one-year contract. He said the board needs first to discuss Farr's recommendations.
Margiotta said he referred Robinson's unsolicited proposal to the school system'sfinance department to review the cost implications. But he said there are no plans to consider the offer because it's "too far from what was in the Farr report." Farr's reportincluded a recommendation to replace Tharrington Smith with an in-house attorney.
Ann Majestic, who has served as Tharrington Smith's lead attorney for the school board, said the firm's termination option was shortened from 90 days to 30 days after she spoke with Margiotta. She said the new contract, which hasn't been officially signed yet, means the firm will have to work even more quickly now to respond to Wake's requests.
Margiotta said it wasMajestic who offered to include the 30-day window.
John Tedesco, a member of the school board majority, said he hasn't looked at Robinson's proposal in depth, but is open to changes in representation despite his positive opinion of much of the work performed by Tharrington Smith.
"We have solid recommendations from the Farr report that we should look at opportunities to share costs with the county attorney," Tedesco said. "With us spending over a million dollars on legal work a year, there is ample opportunity to look for the best in each sector."
