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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The president and vice president of the Birmingham Board of Education will meet with the two law firms the board has on retainer to possibly renegotiate hourly fees, the board decided in a work session Tuesday.

Phyllis Wyne and Virginia Volker will discuss the hourly rates — higher than what many larger districts in the state pay — with Thomas, Means, Gillis & Seay, and Waldrep, Stewart & Kendrick, and ask them to lower their fees.

“Since they are our lawyers, I think this is the route we need to take,” Volker said at the meeting.

The board hired an in-house attorney last year at Superintendent Craig Witherspoon’s recommendation. At the time, Witherspoon intended for that attorney to take the place of the two firms on retainer, but the majority of board members said the law firms represented the board, not the school district, and refused to stop using them.

But Witherspoon pointed out to board members in a recent memo that the firms’ hourly rates — between $200 and $275 an hour, depending on the law firm and the lawyers’ level of experience — was higher than the rates paid by the Mobile County, Huntsville and Jefferson County school systems.

Birmingham paid $1.1 million in legal fees to the two firms in fiscal 2010 and $1.2 million in fiscal 2009. This year, hiring in-house counsel has reduced the amount paid to the outside firms. The board spent nearly $300,000 from September 2010 through February 2011, a six-month period under the new arrangement.

Volker said that after she and Wyne meet with the firms, they will report back to Witherspoon. “I think they will be more than willing to work with us on the rates,” she said.

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