Lehighton Area School District appears poised to continue its legal relationship with Fox Rothschild LLP for the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to a proposed agreement up for vote later this month.

The law firm recently submitted a formal engagement letter dated March 3, outlining proposed terms for solicitor services from July 1, 2025, until June 30, 2026.

The proposed agreement maintains the previous year’s base hourly rate of $250 per hour for routine legal matters but includes a $5 per hour increase for certain specialized services.

A shift in school board leadership in late 2021 resulted in a change from the local Filer and Schwab law firm to Fox Rothschild for solicitor services.

District officials said Monday night Lehighton has seen a significant reduction in legal costs in recent months following procedural changes in how they engage with the firm’s services.

“I believe in January our costs were around $2,400 and February was about $1,200,” Superintendent Jason Moser said. “We’re going to see some ebbs and flows obviously as we go. I do not anticipate next month being this low because there are some things that come up.”

According to the engagement letter from Jeffrey Sultanik of Fox Rothschild, the firm proposes maintaining its base hourly rate of $250 for routine matters such as attendance at board meetings, preparation of routine agreements, review of policies, and personnel issues. Specialty services including land development, construction contracts, and HIPAA-related matters would continue at $300 per hour.

Some specialized rates would see modest increases, including tax increment financing work, which would rise to $305 per hour, and audit inquiry responses, which would increase by $50 to $850 for original requests and $650 for updates.

The overall reduction in legal expenses, Board President Joy Beers said, appears to be the result of procedural changes implemented by district administration.

“I have changed my process,” Beers said. “I only reach out to Jeff (Sultanik) after I have consulted with the board and made sure that this is an expense we want to incur. And I think since that change has been made, I haven’t heard people complaining and I think things have been working out a lot better.”

Moser also outlined his approach Monday to keeping costs down.

“I am committed to doing as much work as I possibly can up front to lower the cost once the solicitor is engaged. What I have found in my experience, oftentimes, the back and forth of ‘can you get me this or can you get me that’ is actually what accrues a whole lot of costs.”

Moser also said his communication with Fox Rothschild is often by email instead of phone which typically keeps costs down.

Lehighton resident Autumn Abelovsky advocated in the past for putting out a request for proposals to see what other firms offered.

“My issue was not necessarily getting rid of the Fox Rothschild,” she said. “My request was that you put out an RFP just to see what the other services would offer. I know several months ago there were some issues within the board with access to the solicitor due to their not being at meetings.”

Director Jeremy Glaush defended the current arrangement, stating, “We have the same policy going on now that we had last year, that access to the solicitor does go through the president. There’s nothing wrong with that. It actually saved us a lot of money because emails were going back and forth with the solicitor and the president wasn’t aware that was happening. Each email costs us money and some people speak in emails like they’re speaking in a chat room.”