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Georgia's third largest school system is on the hunt for a new top lawyer.

Jennifer Hackemeyer, chief legal officer at the DeKalb County School District in Atlanta and a longtime Georgia in-house education lawyer, retired, effective Dec. 31, said Eileen Houston-Stewart, the school system's chief communications and community relations officer. Marissa Key has been named interim CLO while a search for Hackemeyer's successor is conducted. Houston-Stewart said she has no additional information about that search, including its planned scope and length.

Jennifer Hackemeyer.

Hackemeyer joined DeKalb Schools in 2016. At the time she had been serving as GC at the Georgia Department of Education since 2005, according to her LinkedIn profile. Before that, she was the executive director of legal services at the Technical College System of Georgia, the profile said.

Hackemeyer could not immediately be reached for comment about her retirement.

Her interim successor, Key, was executive legal officer before being tapped for the temporary post, according to the DeKalb Schools' Legal Affairs website. The office, which includes a legal unit and risk management and workers' compensation unit, has about 15 employees, including five attorneys, according to the website, as well as a search of the online State Bar of Georgia member directory.

Hackemeyer's departure from the DeKalb school system brings the number of vacancies to four currently filled by interim employees on Superintendent R. Stephen Green's cabinet.

“The DeKalb County School District has a deliberate and strategic succession plan and we are well positioned and prepared for any transitions,” Green said in an email of the relatively high number of cabinet vacancies and high level of turnover in the past couple of years.

The DeKalb County School District serves nearly 102,000 students, 140 schools and centers, and 15,500 employees, including 6,600 teachers, according to its website.

Under Hackemeyer's leadership, the district in June sued the city of Atlanta to stop its annexation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University, a move that would effectively transfer $2 million in tax revenue from the district to the Atlanta public school system. That case currently is pending, with a motions hearing scheduled for later this month, according to the online court docket.