Abbey G. Hairston, who represented ousted executive director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. in his suit against the NAACP, will be Baltimore's lead counsel in its planned school funding lawsuit against the state.
Ms. Hairston, a newly named partner in the Silver Spring law firm Alexander, Gephardt, Aponte and Marks, served as an attorney for the Palm Beach (Fla.) County school board from 1983 to 1993.
Senior partner Koteles Alexander will assist her. He was instrumental in getting former Prince George's County State's Attorney Alexander Williams Jr. confirmed to a federal judgeship this year, despite an unfavorable rating by an American Bar Association committee.
The firm will be paid $500,000.
The hiring by the city's Board of Estimates Wednesday came a day after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action suit against the Maryland Board of Education and several state officials. The suit charges that city schoolchildren do not receive the resources to get an adequate education, and asks that the court declare the state's school financing system to be unconstitutional.