Starting work in 2024, the Crossley firm will continue to represent the district, and mainly spend their time in court acquiring funds from bond forfeitures (last year, NHCS received $1.6 million), attending board meetings and employee and student hearings, and counseling on open lawsuits against the district. Sometimes they prep district staff who are called upon to testify in child custody battles. They also consult on redactions for public records requests.
In a previous WHQR analysis of four months of legal bills, the Vogel firm had billed for 516 hours for a total of $108,444, compared to Tharrington Smith’s 515 for $104,832. For the school district’s current firms — they billed collectively for 404 hours for $82,652. While the Sink Law Firm was providing guidance to NHCS for exceptional children services (the district is now contracting with Poyner Spruill LLP for this), Crossley McIntosh et al. covered most other services. Brian Kromke and Blanchard serve as the district’s two main attorneys from Crossley. If they attend meetings together, then they only charge one billing at $250 an hour. Sink charges $235. Tharrington and Vogel charged $235 at the partner level. Poyner Spruill will charge $310 at that level.
Main spending items
There were about ten bills from Crossley over $1,000 over the course of an eight-month period. The way in which Blanchard and Kromke write the itemized bill is often to couple together several types of work and advice from the same day.
For example, for one of the highest billings at $1,375 on March 4 for 5.3 hours, included “conference and correspondence with D. Brinson [NHCS Assistant Superintendent] regarding software vendor contract; conference with Chair Mason about closed session items/Board governance issues to be discussed prior to meeting; met with Chair Mason, Ms. Justice, and Dr. Merrick prior to regular meeting; attended regular meeting, with closed session.”…