The choosing of a new attorney for the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees was postponed Thursday when board president Jerry Boland said he’d like to see the process opened to different firms.

The vacancy was created in May when former school board counsel M. James Chaney was appointed judge for the 9th Circuit Court District by Gov. Haley Barbour after former Judge Frank Vollor retired.

Chaney, with his firm Teller, Chaney, Hassell and Hopson as backup, had served as the school board’s attorney since 1987, when the former Vicksburg Municipal Separate School District and Warren County Public Schools consolidated into the one district.

Since Chaney’s appointment to the bench, former law partner and state Sen. Briggs Hopson III stepped in as the school board’s legal counsel.

Hopson was at the meeting Thursday night when the item — an agreement for legal services — came up for consideration.

Before any discussion was offered, Boland told his fellow board members that he wanted to ask the Warren County Bar Association to solicit letters of interest from member attorneys and take up the discussion and consideration at the next meeting.

“In the past we have had an agreement between us and him, and secondarily with his firm,” Boland said of Chaney after the meeting. “It was not a contract, it was more like a retainer. The board will discuss who his replacement will be, whether it will be a contract or an agreement and how we will proceed.”

Hopson said after the meeting that he was not surprised by the board’s action, and that he intended to apply with the same type of arrangement Chaney had, where members of the firm would step in and attend meetings when he was unable to be there.

“I think our firm and Mr. Chaney have done a great job for them for many years,” he said. “I would be disappointed if we did not get to continue that.”

About 9,000 students resume classes Tuesday in the countywide school district.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com