ROCKINGHAM — A majority of the Richmond County Board of Commissioners approved the appointment of Mujeeb Shah-Khan as county attorney, to serve Richmond County Government.
Bob Jessup, bond counsel with Sanford Holshouser, helped with the selection process. According to Jessup, County Manager Bryan Land asked for his assistance in choosing a new county attorney. Vice Chairman Jason Gainey, Commissioner Justin Dawkins and Chairman Jeff Smart also served on the selection committee.
According to Jessup, in September, “we prepared a draft request for proposals.”
Jessup added, “our goal in that process was to get proposals that were simple, that were not full of gotcha questions or asked for extensive information that really would not apply or be used in the election process.” Proposals were sent to “several likely suspects” — people Jessup and his team knew would be interested in doing the work.
The proposal was also posted on Listserv. “That is frequently and commonly used by people in the local government law business,” Jessup said.
After a month, six responses were received, with two of them being “from entities that we really thought were not up to for the level of the other four,” resulting in four interviews for the remaining candidates.
The candidates were interviewed in Rockingham in November by Jessup, the three commissioners and Land.
“We previewed the interview process with the participating commissioners so that the people showing up for the interviews would be prepared to address the topics that we knew the commissioners were particularly interested in,” Jessup said.
After the interviews, the committee regrouped, and the commissioners who had participated “had a clear first choice.”
“Stood head and shoulders above everyone — not just because of his expertise, but because [of] his experience with small communities like ours. And that was very important to me and the other people on the board,” Jessup said.
Commissioners Andy Grooms and Dr. Rick Watkins voted against the hire, with Watkins emphasizing a “No.” Commissioner Robin Roberts joined the January meeting remotely.
“Thank you of course to the members of the commission. I appreciate your willingness to put this trust in me and I look forward to a long relationship,” said Shah-Khan.
Shah-Khan, based in Matthews, previously served as senior assistant attorney for the city of Charlotte and city attorney for Greensboro and Monroe. Henry L. Kitchin Jr., a Wilmington-based attorney, had been serving as interim county attorney for the board.