LAURINBURG — The Scotland County Board of Education has decided to continue with Raleigh attorney Eva DuBuisson on a permanent basis after a 5-2 vote on Monday.
DuBuisson has been working as the interim attorney for the board since former attorney Nick Sojka left in January. At the February meeting of the Board of Education, the board voted to hire Tharrington Smith LLP, DuBuisson’s firm, to fill the position until applications and a new attorney could be brought on.
The other applicant for the position was local attorney Brandi Jones Bullock of Jones Bullock, PLLC. Council-member Mary Evans and Board of Education candidate Jacob Pate all spoke to the board in hopes of Bullock being hired back in February.
Both Evans and Pate wanted someone who had roots in the community. Evans also spoke about giving preference to “local, qualified” applicants.
The board however disagreed and went with DuBuisson — with Jamie Sutherland, Raymond Hyatt, Jeff Byrd, Wayne Cromartie, and Chair Summer Woodside all voting for DuBuisson, while Herman Tyson and Rick Singletary both voted for Bullock. Board member Carolyn Banks was absent from the vote.
“I’d like to thank Miss Bullock for interviewing for the job,” Woodside said. “And I’d like to welcome Miss DuBuisson to the board.”
DuBuisson thanked the board for choosing her and said she is excited to continue on with them.
She obtained her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law in 2007 and has also earned a master of public policy degree from the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University.
It was after graduation she began working with Tharrington Smith representing clients in the state and federal court as well as N.C. Office of Administration Hearings. She has also been a council member of the Education Law Section Council of the North Carolina Bar Association.
“I have worked exclusively with public schools,” DuBuisson had said in her interview. “That is pretty much all that I do. In fact, I began working with Tharrington Smith as a law student around my second year of law school. So throughout my career, my main focus has been school law.”
Bullock was a Scotland County High School graduate who opened her practice in Laurinburg while still living in Durham and eventually moved to Laurinburg when the commute became too much.
The Board of Education meets again on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. at the A.B. Gibson Center.