Desegregation case’s lead counsel stepping down after 37-year run
Sam Jones, an attorney who has represented the Pulaski County Special School District throughout a 37-yearold federal school desegregation lawsuit, has told the presiding judge in the case that he will no longer be the trial lawyer for the district.
“I am stepping down from my almost 40-year role as lead counsel for the PCSSD in this case,” Jones said in a letter to U.S. District Chief Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.
Jones, 68, said he is making the move for a variety of reasons, one of which is that “I am no spring chicken.”
The attorney said that he will continue to provide advice and direction to other attorneys for the district in the lawsuit, including
Devin Bates and Amanda G. Orcutt of his law firm of Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard, and to Jay Bequette of the Bequette and Billingsley firm.
“I have largely enjoyed my role which, to say the least, has at times been most challenging but usually intellectually stimulating,” Jones said, thanking Marshall for his “stewardship in this matter.”
Marshall placed the letter in the case file and with a cover letter in which he said: “The Court has received the attached letter. On 15 February 1983, M. Samuel Jones III appeared as counsel in this case for the Pulaski County Special School District. He has well and faithfully represented PCSSD as lead counsel in the decades since. The Court understands and appreciates his new role.”
Jones graduated from Hendrix College in 1973 and Vanderbilt Law School in 1976.