Longtime Wake County school board attorney Ann Majestic is the focus of a front-page article in last week's issue of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.

The profile details how Majestic started a legal career that will lead to her in April receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys.

Much of the article focuses on Majestic's work in Wake, including her successful efforts to win over the initially suspicious Republican board majority in 2009. The article also talks about her personal views on the role of socioeconomic diversity in student assignment.

It's looking pretty clear that the new Democratic majority on the Wake County school board will not be retaining the legal services of Republican attorney Kieran Shanahan.

Shanahan's legal contract came up last week during the school board's discussion of a proposal to increase Tharrington Smith's hourly legal rate by $5. During the work session discussion, it was noted that Shanahan's law firm is still under contract through June to receive up to $25,000.

The new unanimously approved contract will pay Tharrington Smith's partners $190 per hour, $175 an hour for associates and $95 per hour for paralegals. It's roughly a 2.7 percent increase for partners and 2.9 percent for associates.

The Wake County school board will formally discuss the potentially contentious issue of redistricting at today's meeting.

In a last-minute addition to the agenda, school board member Kevin Hill says he's asking the board to discuss a resolution on providing a "transparent" process for drawing up the new boundaries to be used for the nine school board districts. Hill said he asked for it to be discussed because the school system needs to begin work on redistricting soon.

One question could be who is tasked with drawing up the new boundaries that will be voted on by the board.

You apparently had to be among the lucky few to know before Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights was going to investigate the complaint against the Wake County school system.

As noted in today's article, at least two school board members who didn’t back the student assignment changes said they first learned of the federal response Wednesday through news accounts. This is despite the fact that the OCR letter is dated Nov. 5.

The official notification to the full board came in an e-mail message shortly before 6 p.m. from interim Superintendent Donna Hargens.

SEE END OF POST FOR TEXT OF E-MAIL MESSAGE FROM HARGENS TO BOARD

What are the odds that Tharrington Smith will still be the Wake County school board's attorney by the time the firm's one-year legal contract expires in June?

As noted in today's article, the school board's vote on June 15 to retain Tharrington Smith for one year didn't end the issue. The contract that Tharrington Smith is now working under includes a 30-day termination notice instead of the 90-day notice used by prior boards.

In this situation where Tharrington Smith could be gone in a month, former Wake County Republican Party chairman David Robinson is proposing that his firm, Nexsen Pruet, become the new board attorney.

It looks like Tharrington Smith will still be the Wake County school board's lawyer after Tuesday and, barring a coup, Ron Margiotta will remain the board chairman.

Tuesday marks the annual meeting held in June when the school board traditionally picks a chair, vice chair and board attorney for the upcoming year. The new majority decided not wait so they deposed Kevin Hill on Dec. 1 and replaced him with Margiotta.

Margiotta said he plans to stay on as chairman to continue the work begun by the new majority. Margiotta will stay on as chairman for the next year as long as the five-member majority sticks together.

Taxpayers could be on the hook for a lot more than $10,000 to defend the Wake County school board against allegations it violated the state's Open Public Meetings Law.

The potentially messy part here is that the school board has two legal firms in the case. In addition to Tharrington Smith, school board chairman Ron Margiotta also hired the Shanahan Law Group.

The inclusion of the second firm could raise costs unless Wake's insurance carrier makes an exception in this case to pay for both firms.

UPDATE

SEE SHANAHAN'S RESPONSE TO COMPLAINT AT END OF POST

Is it time for the Wake County school board to replace the firm of Tharrington Smith as its attorney with an in-house general counsel?

As noted in today's article, attorney Thomas Farr is telling the board that it should have the ability to quickly change its attorney whenever there's a change in the majority. He notes how Tharrington Smith also does legal work for at least 18 other school boards and the N.C. School Boards Association.

"It is critical that the attorney primarily responsible for advising the school board), as well as managing all other lawyers performing work for the WCPSS, be an attorney in whom the majority of the Board has complete confidence and trust and who is fully and exclusively dedicated to providing legal advice to the (school board)," Farr said in his audit report.

It looks like the new Wake County school board majority can have Thomas Farr as special interim legal counsel if it's willing to pay him $250 an hour.

In a last-minute revision to Tuesday's school board agenda, a vote has been scheduled on the proposed terms for the special interim legal counsel. Board approval is being requested for the contract negotiated Dec. 31 by Farr and school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

"This rate ($250 per hour) reflects a discount of thirty percent of my standard rate for private companies and a substantial reduction of the rate charged by other shareholders in our Raleigh office," Farr writes in a letter to Margiotta.

Questions continue to swirl around the new Wake County school board majority's efforts to hire a prominent Republican attorney to audit the district's legal services.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, former school board chairman Kevin Hill is questioning Thomas Farr's political ties. He was a former GOP nominee for a federal judgeship and a former legal counsel for the state Republican Party.

"I do believe it doesn't look good for the board," Hill said in the article. "He is closely identified with the Republican Party at the state level. His law firm has a minimum amount of experience with school law."