Camille Stell
is President and CEO of Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualnc.com or 800.662.8843.

“Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” ~ Jean Rhys

In January 2019, I set my annual reading challenge — this year’s goal — to read 52 books. By December 31, I had achieved my goal, completing 52 books and reading 15,027 pages.

By comparison, the novelist Stephen King says that he reads about 80 books a year. Without knowing the total books read in a year, we get some clues into the reading habits of other famous people who credit a portion of their success to books. In December, President Obama listed his favorite 19 books of 2019 and, in the year prior, he listed his 29 favorite books of the year. Bill Gates recommended 19 books from 2019. My friend and writing colleague, Jay Reeves, averages 24 books a year, reading two to four books at one time, a habit I picked up from him. My writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant reads 52 books each year and publishes book lists in June and December.

Here are a few of my favorites:

North Carolina Lawyer Authors

Heather Bell Adams is a Hendersonville, North Carolina native and a Raleigh lawyer. Her 2017 debut novel, Maranatha Road, was nominated for several literary awards and was a finalist for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, among other honors. Her sophomore novel, The Good Luck Stone, is expected during Summer 2020. Heather’s story of loss and grief is informed by her own life and family, with a beautiful sense of hope woven through her tale.

Maranatha Road is the story of Sadie Caswell, whose son dies shortly before his wedding, and Tinley Greene, a stranger to his family who shows up and claims to be pregnant with his child. Heather says that after years of legal writing, which requires a certain degree of economy, she tends to keep things moving in her fiction as well. “Writing briefs requires distilling complex arguments into their most essential points to stay within the prescribed word limits and avoid annoying the judge. When it comes to fiction, I think (hope) that same careful restraint keeps the reader’s attention from drifting.”

Murder on Birchleaf Drive: The True Story of the Michelle Young Murder Case is Poyner & Spruill lawyer, Steve Epstein’s, first published book. When asked what inspired him to write the book, he says, “It was almost as if this story found me and, for some reason, chose me to write it. I have no background or experience in criminal law. I had no role in this case whatsoever. I had never written a book — about anything. Before embarking on this project, I had never considered writing one. I followed the incessant news coverage of this murder case pretty closely. The case was in the news again during the summer of 2017 for a hearing on Jason Young’s motion for appropriate relief. I reached out to his former attorney to determine if anyone had ever written this true crime story and learned that the field was wide open. I decided to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone.” I’d say Steve accomplished that and more.

Memoir

Educated by Tara Westover is a 2018 memoir that will break your heart and inspire you. Westover grew up in a family that moved from mainstream to off-the-grid and overcame family obstacles such as mental illness, poverty, child labor, isolation, and physical abuse to end up in college, where she participated in a formal education for the first time. From the mountains of Idaho to Harvard and Cambridge, Westover travels far from home and wonders if she can ever return to the family she left behind.

Fiction

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is set in North Carolina, mostly in the coastal marshland. Though Owens was born in Georgia, it is her experience in Africa that perhaps inspire the novel with themes of abandonment, isolation, and the role of nature in survival.

Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin is a novel based on the real-life American, Blanche Rubenstein Auzello, who secretly worked for the French Resistance during World War II while hosting the invading Germans at the iconic Hotel Ritz in Paris. This was a story I had not heard. When asked what drew her to the character of Blanche, Benjamin says, “How can you not love a woman who threw a glass of champagne in a Nazi officer’s face? She was so gutsy, I had to write about her! I was also drawn to the notion of trying to erase a part of your life, believing you can do so easily, yet finding that it’s still with you, it still defines you decades later.”

North Carolina State University professor Elaine Neil Orr is the author of Swimming Between Worlds. The novel, set in Winston-Salem during the turbulent Civil Rights Movement, was inspired by her experiences as the child of medical missionaries. Orr grew up in Nigeria and she sends her protagonist Tacker Hart — the local high school football hero — to work in West Africa building schools. After forming relationships with Nigerians, he struggles to see his home in the same light when he returns.

Legal

I heard Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York, speak at the Clio conference a few years ago. I now follow his podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, and I read his 2019 book, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment and the Rule of Law. Bharara’s book is filled with stories of people who committed crimes, made mistakes, or simply failed as people do every day. Some of his stories offer redemption, some have satisfying endings, but the stories told from the view of this prosecutor do not disappoint.

You can find a complete list of books I read in 2019 on the Lawyers Mutual blog, A Byte of Prevention.

Camille Stell is the President of Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services. Continue this conversation by contacting Camille at camille@lawyersmutualconsulting.com or 800.662.8843.

Save the date for Tuesday, April 21, 2020, the Greensboro Bar Association’s Second Chance Project, in partnership with the North Carolina Justice Center, will be presenting a FREE CLE program for Greensboro Bar Association Members on (1) expunction of criminal records and (2) eliminating traffic court debt to restore driving privileges.

The first part of this CLE will be an overview of changes to North Carolina statutes relating to expunction and will provide training on how to assist a client through the process of getting an eligible criminal charge or conviction expunged.  The second part of this CLE will explain the nature and impact of traffic court debt in Guilford County and identify tools to eliminate debt and restore driving privileges.

The presenter will be Daniel Bowes, Director of the North Carolina Justice Center’s Fair Chance Criminal Justice Project.  Mr. Bowes partners with impacted people, congregations, concerned community members, advocacy organizations, and decision-makers to change local and state policies and practices to make the criminal justice system fairer, from arrest to reentry.

3 Hours of General CLE Credit (approval pending)

CLE program from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

The Community Room
at Guilford Merchants Association/First Point,
225 Commerce Place, Greensboro, NC  27401

Registration information is forthcoming.

Brooks Pierce has been named to Benchmark Litigation’s short list for “North Carolina Law Firm of the Year” for 2020. The firm has won the award each year since 2016.

“Brooks Pierce is pleased to once again be named a finalist for Benchmark Litigation’s North Carolina Law Firm of the Year,” said Reid Phillips, the firm’s managing partner. “We continue to handle some of the state’s most complex cases and challenging legal issues, and this recognition is a testament to the work of all of our attorneys.”

Other North Carolina firms named to the short list include Ellis & Winters, Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein, Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson and Smith Anderson. Nominees were chosen based upon research conducted between March and November 2019.

Benchmark Litigation serves as the definitive guide to America’s leading litigation firms and attorneys. Rankings are based on a six-month period where Benchmark researchers conduct extensive interviews with litigators and their clients to identify the leaders in litigation. More information on the guide’s methodology can be found at https://www.benchmarklitigation.com/general/research.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on February 27 in New York City.

Twenty-two attorneys in the Greensboro office of Brooks Pierce have been recognized in the 2020 edition of 0, including four attorneys who were recognized as “Rising Stars.”

Firmwide, 34 attorneys were recognized as industry leaders in 2020 by Super Lawyers, a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. Super Lawyers selects attorneys using a patented multiphase selection process. Peer nominations and evaluations are combined with third party research. Each candidate is evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement. Selections are made on an annual, state-by-state basis. For more information about the Super Lawyers methodology, visit http://www.superlawyers.com/about/selection_process.html.

The firm’s Greensboro attorneys recognized as 2020 “Super Lawyers” are:

Jimmy Adams for Business Litigation

Arty Bolick for Construction Litigation

Bill Cary for Employment and Labor

Mark Davidson for Business/Corporate

Kearns Davis for Criminal Defense: White Collar, Top 10 North Carolina Lawyers

George House for Environmental Litigation

Bob King for Environmental

Beth Langley for Employment and Labor

Dan McGinn for Employment and Labor

Jeff Oleynik for Bankruptcy: Business, Top 100 North Carolina Lawyers

Jim Phillips for Business Litigation, Top 100 North Carolina Lawyers

Reid Phillips for Business Litigation

David Sar for Intellectual Property Litigation

Bob Saunders for Business/Corporate

Bob Singer for Banking

John Small for Bankruptcy: Business

Jennifer Van Zant for Business Litigation, Top 50 North Carolina Women Lawyers

Ed Winslow for Banking

The Greensboro-based Brooks Pierce attorneys recognized as 2020 “Rising Stars” are:

Clint Morse for Business Litigation

Joey Ponzi for Environmental Litigation

Dan Smith for Civil Litigation: Defense

Elizabeth Troutman for Schools and Education

Submissions Due February 15, 2020

The Herb Falk Society was established to honor members of the Greensboro Bar Association who contribute at least 75 hours of pro bono service each calendar year. The deadline for reporting pro bono services provided in 2019 is February 15, 2020. The reporting has been simplified in recent years.

Complete and mail the form on page 14 to the GBA office (PDF available for download here.)  This year, you can also report your hours online! Fill out the Reporting Form for as many pro bono activities you completed in 2019.

To assist in tracking your 2020 pro bono hours, please use the template spreadsheet on page 15 to keep up with all of the work and contributions you make in 2020. Click here to download .xlsx template spreadsheet.

Questions or concerns? Reach out to Herb Falk Society Chair Manisha P. Patel.

Report your 2019 Pro Bono Information Here

DEADLINE: March 31, 2020

North Carolina Rule of Professional Conduct 6.1 encourages North Carolina attorneys to engage in a variety of activities to increase access to justice:

at least 50 hours each year of pro bono legal services to clients who are unable to pay, without fee or expectation of fee;

• legal services provided at a substantially reduced fee;
• activities to improve the law, the legal system, or the legal profession;
• non-legal community service; and
• financial support to legal service providers.

The North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center is collecting information on attorney participation in activities covered under North Carolina Rule of Professional Conduct 6.1, adopted by the North Carolina State Bar in 2010.

These activities include:

1. providing pro bono legal services,
2. providing legal services at a substantially reduced fee,
3. participating in activities to improve the law, the legal system or the legal profession and financially supporting legal service providers.
4. The pro bono reporting form is available from January 1st to March 31st each year, collecting information about activities from the prior year.

To assist in tracking your 2020 pro bono hours, please use this template spreadsheet to keep up with all of the work and contributions you make in 2020.

For more information about 2019 Pro Bono reporting, please visit the NC Pro Bono Resource Center’s reporting page.

Eric A. Richardson
President, Greensboro Bar Association

Where do you stand with Diversity?  Having recently celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I ask our members this question because this holiday reminds me that diversity is in many ways the fundamental component of what Dr. King stood for.  If I’m correct about that, I wonder how our Bar is honoring his legacy and invite each of you to consider that question in your practice, courtroom, civic group, or daily life.

For me, this equation is relatively simple because I welcome the benefits of diversity and view the opposite of diversity as the concept known as “Groupthink,” or the conduct that flows from a group whose desire to be in harmony or conformity results in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making.  Generally speaking, I attempt to avoid dysfunctional decision-making.  The ideas of harmony and conformity have value in certain environments and may work for some groups or organizations, but ultimately the ability to critically evaluate ideas and to openly address unasked questions is what solves problems and makes a group as strong as it can be.  In other words, diverse opinions matter and diverse ideas deserve consideration.  Or, as Malcolm Forbes put it, “Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.”

So why wouldn’t we want diversity in our law practices and why do we collectively struggle with this concept?  I don’t have the answers to these questions but for an interesting evaluation of this topic, I recommend a 2015 Fordham Law Review article, Diversity in the Legal Profession: Perspectives from Managing Partners and General Counsel, Volume 83, Issue 5.  Therein the authors explore why the concept of diversity in law firms is applauded but in practice diversity initiatives or priorities remain varied.

… diverse opinions matter and diverse ideas deserve consideration.  Or, as Malcolm Forbes put it, “Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.”

Our own North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley gave the keynote address to the 40th annual MLK Noon Hour Commemoration at Union Baptist Church in Winston-Salem on Monday, January 20, 2020, and reminded her audience “that where justice doesn’t serve everyone, it is not justice.”  And this very simple tenet of “justice for all” in my belief is built upon the foundation of diversity.  German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said it this way, “[t]he surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

But there is more to this idea of diversity.  Much more.  For example, it seems to me that logical, success-seeking business owners would welcome diverse perspectives.  In his article, The Business Case for Diversity in the Workplace Is Now Overwhelming, Vijay Eswaran explained that “[i]n …Malaysia, my home country, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity has always been promoted.  By the time I was 18, I could speak five languages and had friends from Chinese, Indian, Malay and Eurasian communities.”  He goes on to say that “… Malaysia … has outperformed most of its regional partners, with a high annual GDP growth….”  Moreover, a 2017 Boston Consulting Group study found that companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to innovation.

Whatever your background, mission or motivation, I hope that the lawyers of this Association will enrich themselves by integrating diversity into their practice and their community of referrals.  Or, for those already doing so, continue to embrace diversity as a fountainhead of benefit.  We have much to learn and more to gain from widening our circle of friends and acquaintances, than from narrowing or stifling it.  Because as humorist Will Rogers reminded us, “[e]ven if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit still.”