Legalese was in the air on Tuesday night at the Multi-Service Center, as the Selectmen interviewed three candidates for town attorney.

The board is required by the Town Charter to reappoint Town Counsel every March. Current town attorney Richard Bowen was among the candidates.

Selectmen will take a vote on who to appoint at next week's meeting.

While all perform the same function as legal counsel, the three candidates have different rates as well as varying ways of handling their clients.

First up were Lauren Goldberg and Betsy Lane of Boston law firm Kopelman and Paige, which handled the town's legal business for years until recently. Bowen previously worked for that firm.

Goldberg and Lane said their firm has a plethora of attorneys with expertise in a number of areas regarding municipal law.

"We are a firm of Town Counsels," said Goldberg. "We are also a firm of specialists," she said, adding that all the lawyers at Kopelman and Paige are trained in municipal law and basic municipal finance.

She argued that having a firm is more realistic for a town than having one lawyer serving the community.

"At one point it was reasonable to have one person as Town Counsel," but that's no longer the case, according to Goldberg.

Lane added: "There is no one person who could possibly, competently be Town Council."

She said the attorneys at the firm see themselves as "information organizers" who will prevent the town from heading down a path that lands the town in lawsuits.

"We don't make recommendations to you in a vacuum," said Goldberg. "We know the pulse of the towns we represent."

Members of the board expressed concern about the lack of a steady presence at both board meetings and Town Hall.

"We have had Town Counsel present at most all of our meetings," said Selectmen Chair Steve Holmes. "I think that has been very beneficial to us."

Holmes also noted that the current town attorney keeps office hours once a week at Town Hall.

Goldberg said she believes such presence has its pitfalls.

"You hear comments like 'so-and-so is like the sixth member of the board,'" she said. "You get into a situation where the attorney is acting as a conduit," for the board or for the town administrator.

She did note, however, that there may be a "ramp up time" during which the town wants its counsel around more regularly, and Kopelman and Paige is willing to be there at such times.

Kopelman and Paige is proposing two payment options: One would charge Wareham a fixed rate of $175 per hour. The other option would cost $8,000 per month, or $96,000 per year.

Attorney Bowen currently earns a flat fee of $15,000 per month, and should he be reappointed that rate will stay the same.

The Selectmen also interviewed Attorney Lawrence Mayo, who is based in Norwell. He argued that the town does not need an entire law firm to handle legal services.

He has worked as an attorney for Halifax, and served as outside counsel to the city of Lawrence.

"I've been heavily embedded in municipal law, soup to nuts," said Mayo. "This is my own practice. I'm not one of 80 people," he said noting that the town would receive a more personalized service form him than it would a firm.

"My job is to keep boards, committees, town employees" out of legal situations, rather than taking a reactive approach to lawsuits, he said.

"I'm heartened to hear you believe in taking a prophylactic approach," commented Selectman Peter Teitelbaum. "We've seen certain paths our predecessors have gone down," and have tried to learn from those mistakes.

Mayo emphasized his availability, and said he was open to keeping weekly or bi-weekly office hours at Town Hall. He also said that he is well aware of the responsibilities that come with serving a town.

"You can't make any decision lightly." he said. "You have thousands of people depending on every decision you make."

Like Kopelman and Paige, Mayo is offering the town two payment proposals: One would charge Wareham $6,000 a month, or $72,000 per year, plus $145 per hour for litigation services. The other option would be an hourly rate of $145 for all legal services.

Bowen has been doing legal work for Wareham since 1989 and has been lead-counsel since 2007. He worked for Kopelman and Page before leaving to join Blatman, Bobrowski & Mead, which the town then hired.

Bowen announced he was leaving the firm in September of last year. At that time, he told Selectmen that he had been spending more time than was contractually required of him in Wareham, which wasn't fair to the firm. His last day with the firm was in October, and the Selectmen opted to keep Bowen on as town attorney in the interim.

Noting that both firms stressed that though they were out of town, they would be readily available, Bowen said that with technology the way it is, any attorney can make themselves available 24/7.

"The real question is, when you get this midnight epiphany...if you've sent an e-mail at midnight, haven't you gotten an answer by 1 a.m.?" Bowen asked.

He also took issue with the comment about an ever-present town attorney turning into a de facto Selectman.

"When I have the honor of sitting there at the table, I'm not a fifth Selectman," he said. (The board currently has four members as opposed to the usual five, due to Ellen Begley's resignation earlier this year.)

Bowen also noted that he has worked many billable hours for which he has not billed the town, and said that he has never billed the town for any litigation hours.

Bowen also brings the services of attorneys from his former firm, Blatman, Bobrowski & Mead.

"I think one thing I think is interesting in your proposal is the continuation of the services of Jon Witten," whose expertise is in land use, said Teitelbaum.

Bowen again emphasized the value of having an attorney present at board meetings and at Town Hall.

"If you want to be part of the team," he said, "you have to be there on game day."