Scalf Notice of Appearance
Filed 2025-08-20 · By Caroline L. Scalf, Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP · Document type Notice of Appearance (NoA — the formal “I’m the lawyer on this case” filing) View the PDF →
Legal shorthand in this page: CLS = Caroline L. Scalf (defense attorney). BDB = Bennett D. Bryan (co-defense attorney). BCSD = Bibb County School District. Ga. Bar # = Georgia State Bar number (the attorney’s official ID). FERPA = Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. IDEA = Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. ORA = Open Records Act.
What is this document?
This is the second of two Notices of Appearance filed by the Bibb County School District’s defense team on August 20, 2025. It was filed at 2:34 PM, exactly two minutes after her colleague Bennett D. Bryan’s notice hit the docket. The “CLS” in the filename is attorney Caroline L. Scalf’s initials — her personal filing tag.
With this filing, Scalf formally announces herself as a second attorney of record for BCSD. Like Bryan’s notice, the document itself is administrative — a declaration that she should receive service of all future pleadings — but its presence alongside Bryan’s filing tells readers something meaningful about how BCSD plans to defend this case.
At a glance
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Filed | August 20, 2025 (2:34 PM) |
| Filed by | Caroline L. Scalf (Ga. Bar No. 413024 — her official Georgia State Bar ID number), Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP (Atlanta) |
| Document type | Notice of Appearance |
| Filed for | Defendant — Bibb County School District (BCSD) |
Deep dive — legal concepts, explained
Second-chair counsel
In civil litigation, parties commonly assign cases to a team of lawyers rather than a single attorney. The senior lawyer (often called lead counsel or first chair) sets strategy and argues the major motions. The junior or co-counsel (second chair) handles research, drafting, discovery logistics, day-to-day case management, and often secondary arguments at hearings.
When both lawyers enter appearances, both become lawyers of record, and both must be served with everything. The client typically pays both, though second-chair billable rates are lower. For a defendant, staffing a case with two lawyers is a deliberate choice — it costs more per hour, but it means neither attorney is a single point of failure when deadlines stack up.
Because Bryan and Scalf filed notices within two minutes of each other, it is safe to read them as a coordinated pair: one intake event, two lawyers, one unified defense team from day one.
Who is Caroline L. Scalf?
Caroline L. Scalf is a Georgia attorney, Bar No. 413024, also practicing out of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP’s Atlanta office. Her higher bar number relative to Bryan’s (157009) is a clue that she was admitted to the Georgia Bar more recently — bar numbers are assigned sequentially, so a larger number typically means a more junior lawyer. That is consistent with the usual pattern of a senior partner leading the case while a more junior associate does the heavy lifting on briefing, discovery, and correspondence.
You will see Scalf’s initials surface repeatedly in the docket — for example, the filename of one negotiated stipulation is literally Macon_Melody_Stipulation_CLS_edits_JR_edits.pdf, memorializing an exchange of redlines between Scalf (“CLS”) and plaintiff’s then-counsel Joy Ramsingh (“JR”). That is the kind of document-passing that second-chair counsel typically owns.
What a two-attorney defense tells you about the case
When a defendant staffs a case with two lawyers from a regional firm on day one, that is a significant posture signal. In straightforward cases, districts typically use a single in-house or contracted lawyer. Two lawyers from Parker Poe, appearing simultaneously, suggests:
- BCSD anticipates extensive motion practice and discovery. Open-records cases can be litigation-heavy when the defendant invokes federal privacy statutes, as BCSD does here.
- BCSD wants redundancy. Either lawyer can cover hearings, depositions, and deadlines if the other is unavailable.
- BCSD is prepared to spend real money. Two Parker Poe lawyers billing on a case is not cheap for a public school district — particularly when the underlying dispute is whether to disclose a single dollar figure.
The hourly-rate math is worth pausing on. If this lawsuit is about refusing to tell the public the size of one 2024 settlement, every month it continues is another month of legal bills paid with public funds — potentially more than the settlement figure itself. That tension is part of why open-records cases of this type attract public scrutiny.
Why this matters
Read together with Bryan’s notice, Scalf’s appearance shows that BCSD is not planning to concede the records request. A single attorney of record from a local general-counsel firm would suggest a lighter-weight defense. Two attorneys of record from a regional specialty firm, appearing within the same two-minute window, suggests BCSD intends to litigate every issue — and to treat the Macon Melody’s Open Records Act lawsuit as a serious test of FERPA and IDEA’s reach.
Read the original
Part of Court Filings · Case No. 2025-CV-083495 · Bibb County Superior Court