Board approves four‑firm legal team after contested ad hoc selection; some trustees cite process concerns

The North Hunterdon‑Voorhees Board of Education voted May 27 to contract with a diversified set of law firms after an ad hoc legal‑services review and interviews. The board approved a slate that names firms for lead/general counsel, special education, labor/employment, and special counsel roles.

The ad hoc legal‑services committee — formed earlier this spring and chaired by a board member — solicited requests for proposals, scored submissions, conducted interviews and recommended a ‘‘diversified strategic legal services structure’’ that the committee said would provide specialized expertise across the district’s legal needs. The recommendation listed: DeFrancesco Bateman (general counsel); Schenck, Price, Smith & King LLP (special education counsel); Cleary, Jacoby & Alfieri LLC (labor and employment counsel); and The Bush Law Group LLC (special counsel).

The board approved the contracts as a block. The motion carried, with a majority voting to adopt agenda items 14.1–14.17; the record includes at least one recorded “no” and at least one abstention on a single item (14.11) and one board member explicitly stated a selective “no” on that line item during the vote.

Several trustees and members of the public challenged aspects of the ad hoc committee’s process. Multiple board members said they learned of the finalized recommendation only after the packet was circulated and asked why the committee’s final report and its scoring results were not posted earlier or summarized in committee meetings for the full board. The ad hoc chair and committee members said the RFPs, interview questions and supporting materials were uploaded to the board resource drive during the review and that the committee had solicited feedback from the board during the process. The chair described a multi‑stage evaluation — pre‑interview scoring of proposals, then interviews and notes — and said committee members took detailed notes and collectively selected the recommended firms.

Public commenters also raised related governance concerns. A Franklin Township resident told the board she was "deeply disappointed and concerned" about the board president’s formation of an ad hoc committee without disclosing its membership and accused the president of using an unresolved ethics complaint against other members in public remarks. A member of the public responded that the underlying ethics process was pending and resided with the appropriate state body; the board solicitor later reminded speakers about confidentiality of pending ethics matters and warned against defamatory remarks.

Why it matters: the board moves from a model that had relied on a smaller number of firms to a multi‑firm approach intended to reduce overreliance on a single counsel by assigning specialties (special education, labor, etc.). Trustees said the structure should speed responses and provide specialty counsel when cases require technical expertise. Several members, however, said the district would be better served by more transparency about how interview scores and reference checks produced the final recommendation.

What the board asked for next: trustees asked the administration to ensure the final contracts match the fee and staffing representations set out in the proposals, and several trustees requested the committee’s scoring matrix and interview notes be summarized for the record. The committee said it would provide those materials as allowable under procurement and personnel confidentiality rules.