YAKIMA, WASH. -- Dr. Stan Flemming, who last week abruptly left his position as president of Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, has hired a lawyer.

"I am being represented by legal counsel who has been in communication with the current university leadership," Flemming said in an e-mail Saturday to the Yakima Herald-Republic.

Flemming declined to elaborate. He has a contract with the university and is presumably seeking to enforce its provisions. Terms of the contract haven't been disclosed.

Karen Hyatt, chairwoman of the board of trustees, said she turned the letter over to the university's lawyers.

"His contract has provisions for arbitration," she said.

Neither Hyatt nor other board members will elaborate on Flemming's departure, which came after two years at the fledgling institution. Flemming, 56, was welcomed by board members as a savvy and well-connected physician and administrator who had also served as a state legislator.

He was the third leader at the university in four years. The College of Osteopathic Medicine has also seen turnover in the dean's position with the sudden resignation in January of Dr. William Betz. Dr. Robyn Phillips-Madson has since been named permanently to the post.

Dr. Lloyd Butler, one of the founders of the university, is serving as interim president.