Mission CISD trustees hire new law firm

Mission CISD trustees voted Wednesday to change the district’s primary legal counsel for the first time since 1998.

Trustees voted to hire the law firm O’Hanlon, Demerath & Castillo to replace firm Eichelbaum, Wardell, Hansen, Powell & Muñoz.

That Austin-based firm has served as the district’s primary legal counsel for close to a quarter of a century, generally through attorney David Hansen.

Trustees ranked O’Hanlon higher than Hansen’s firm and highest out of five firms to apply for the gig, all of which pitched the board on their organizations Wednesday.

O’Hanlon attended the meeting en masse, sending five attorneys to the presentation armed with a detailed power point and enough facts to eat up the entirety of the 10 minutes they had to present in.

O’Hanlon is also based in Austin, though it has an office in Pharr and a strong presence on the Rio Grande Valley education law scene.

Attorney Eden Ramirez described O’Hanlon to Mission trustees Wednesday as a one-stop-shop with statewide knowledge and infrastructure.

“We do everything. There’s nothing and no issues that we’re gonna face here that we have not already experienced, and we have not already gone through,” he said.

Particularly, Ramirez emphasized that the firm would work to mold those resources to Mission CISD’s specific needs and ways of operating. The service, he said, would be both bespoke and cost-efficient.

“How do you do business? And how can we integrate with you?” Ramirez said. “So that we don’t disrupt your operations, we don’t disrupt your patterns of work, and we don’t disrupt what you have here — your organizational health. Our goal is to complement your organizational health with what we can offer for you.”

O’Hanlon was already working for Mission CISD. The board hired the firm last month to review outgoing Superintendent Carol G. Perez’s legally questionable 10-year contract.

Hansen has described that contract as perfectly legal, despite state law limiting superintendents’ contracts to five-year terms. 

More than one trustee on the board has expressed concern over the contract despite that opinion.

The contract didn’t come up specifically Wednesday, though the sole trustee who had a question for Hansen after his presentation asked about how he ensured contracts he drafts adhere to legal requirements for public schools.

Still, trustees thanked Hansen for his two-and-a-half decades serving Mission CISD.

“On behalf of the board and the district, thank you for your dedication and all that you’ve given us, the information,” Board President Iris “Coach” Iglesias said.

In his presentation, Hansen described his work for Mission schools as fundamental to his career as an attorney.

“Mission has been my life for so long that I don’t even really know where it begins and I end,” he said. “Because when I was just starting out, 24 years ago — even as a clerk in 1999 — I was working on Mission…Everything I know I can trace back to Mission.”

Not all trustees voted to hire O’Hanlon. Trustee Petra Ramirez abstained from the vote and Trustee Minnie Rogers didn’t attend the meeting.