At a noon meeting Friday, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee approved a change of attorneys in its legal action against the Oak Bluffs planning board for denying a proposed artificial turf infield at the school.

The last-minute discovery of a conflict of interest by attorney Mark Bobrowski, whom the committee voted 5-4 last month to hire, forced the switch, said member Kris O’Brien.

“What we need to do is, obviously, retain new counsel . . . and continue seeking the appeal,” Ms. O’Brien said.

At Mr. Bobrowski’s recommendation, she said, the law firm of Mead, Talerman and Costa is ready to take over the case.

While the deadline to appeal the planning board’s denial was originally reported as June 3, Ms. O’Brien said the Oak Bluffs board’s decision was recorded with the town on May 16, giving the committee until June 6 to file its appeal.

Mead, Talerman and Costa has already conducted a conflict of interest check and found no concerns, Ms. O’Brien said.

Committee chairman Amy Houghton said the situation with Mr. Bobrowski was out of the ordinary.

“This is not a reflection on the committee,” she said.

“It’s highly unusual that you would have talked with somebody, and at the 12th hour they report a conflict,” Ms. Houghton said.

After unanimously rescinding their May vote to hire Mr. Bobrowski, the committee then voted 5-4 to work with Mead, Talerman and Costa, a land-use law firm based in Newburyport.

As with the May vote, members Kathryn Shertzer, Mike Watts, Louis Paciello and Kimberly Kirk joined Ms. O’Brien in the majority.

Voting nay were Roxanne Ackerman, Robert Lionette, Skipper Manter and Ms. Houghton.

The vote came near the abrupt end of a glitch-riddled Zoom meeting that also heard strong public objections to the turf field appeal.

Geraldine Brooks expressed “total incredulity” at the news.

“I’m just here to voice a lot of the disgust that I’ve heard in the community about this approach,” said Ms. Brooks, a West Tisbury author whose children played varsity sports at the high school.

“We have an alternative. We’re going to waste another growing season. Our kids could have had fantastic, state of the art, natural, healthy grass fields years ago, and how long is this going to on?” Ms. Brooks continued.

High school administrator Sam Hart said he worried that the legal case may harm the high school’s chances of moving forward in the Massachusetts School Building Association construction program.

“No one who is in favor of an appeal is wrong; in fact, you might be successful in this appeal process,” Mr. Hart said.

“But a concern of mine is whether . . . we might want to think about some of the collateral damage that would be done through an appeal process like this when we are entering into the MSBA program,” he added.

“I see this as potentially having significant negative impact on the MSBA process, and there’s a larger picture out there,” Mr. Hart said.

Public comment was still under way, with Beka Al-Deiry speaking, when the Zoom conference suddenly ended about 40 minutes after the start of the meeting.

Ms. Houghton logged back on several minutes later to tell a handful of people who had rejoined that the meeting had been adjourned by default when the connection — and thus the committee’s quorum — was lost.

The high school committee holds its regular meeting Monday at 6 p.m., also on Zoom.