Trustees said they had “zero confidence” in Walsh Gallegos before voting to hire new representation Monday night.
UVALDE, Texas — Uvalde CISD trustees unanimously decided to hire new legal representation Monday night after the district’s original legal counsel failed to properly release all documents tied to a media-led lawsuit on the Robb Elementary School shooting.
Thompson and Horton LLP, which has offices in multiple Texas cities, including Austin, specializes in representing school districts, as well as governmental entities and private businesses, according to the firm’s website.
Philip Fraissinet, managing partner of Thompson and Horton, served as the representative during Monday’s board meeting. For nearly an hour he answered trustees’ questions as he made his case for why the firm should be hired, saying his firm has experience working with districts involved in “matters that have a lot of media attention.”
“At the end of the day these are legal issues, but there’re often more than legal issues,” said Fraissinet, who later said his firm would “err on the side of disclosing (information), if we can.”
Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell had opposed providing records from the 2022 tragedy, pointing to ongoing criminal proceedings against former Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo that she said could be hampered by the documents’ release. But a Texas appeals court in July ordered that Uvalde County and the school district must share their records with the public.
Days later, the school board approved releasing the district’s records, calling it a “step in the right direction.”
Thousands of pages of records released on Aug. 12 went on to reveal missteps in communication by the school district during and after the shooting where 19 children and two teachers died. It took law enforcement 77 minutes to move in and kill the gunman.
The documents also highlighted the frustration felt by at least one teacher who emailed the district about surviving the tragedy and feel as if her voice wasn’t being heard.
Come late August, however, a frustrated Uvalde CISD board voted to release thousands more emails and documents after a representative with San Antonio-based Walsh Gallegos – the district’s original law firm – admitted to distributing only a sample of records previously. Board Secretary Jesse Rizo, uncle of Robb victim Jackie Cazares, said the law firm’s admission amounted to negligence.
Trustees Monday night said they’d want to make sure all releasable records were in the public’s hands. Fraissinet said it would take a little bit of time to get up to speed before it could start providing legal advice.
At one point, a meeting attendee stood up and asked the board to inquire about the process of records release should the district hire Thompson and Horton. Trustee Jaclyn Gonzales, who joined last year, said that in the public’s eye “it seems like there’s a cover-up—and we need to get past that.”
Rizo on Monday night said he ended up having “zero confidence” in the advice Walsh Gallegos was giving the board.
Board President Laura Perez said sometimes the board would hear information for the first time after it’s already been reported in the news.
“We want the same information at the same time,” Perez said. That’s huge for us.”
Fraissinet said Thompson and Horton would work to provide the best legal advice to the district while acknowledging the uncommon level of sensitivity that the Robb shooting fallout should be approached with.
“From what I’ve seen, that’s what the board has wanted is to be transparent with your community,” Fraissinet said. “That didn’t happen, for whatever reason. But based on what I’ve seen, it wasn’t because you as a school board were giving any direction to be less than transparent.”