Home ›
About ›
Communications ›
NCBA News ›
2006 News Articles › Janet Ward Black Elected President-Elect
Janet Ward Black Elected President-Elect
Article Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Written By: Russell Rawlings
President-Elect Janet Ward Black |
Janet Ward Black of Ward Black Law in Greensboro was named president-elect of the North Carolina Bar Association Saturday at the 2006 NCBA Annual Meeting in Atlantic Beach.
Black will succeed Lexington attorney D. Clark Smith Jr. as the 113th president of the NCBA on Saturday, June 23, at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Asheville.
“I am very humbled and honored to have been asked to serve as president of the North Carolina Bar Association,” Black said. “I am looking forward to playing my part in continuing to build on the momentum and tradition which this organization has established throughout its history.”
A Kannapolis native, Black brings a wealth of leadership experience to the helm of North Carolina’s oldest and largest voluntary attorney organization. She recently served as president of the N.C. Academy or Trial Lawyers in 2002-03, and in 1980 captured the title of Miss North Carolina and competed in the Miss America Scholarship Pageant.
G. Gray Wilson, NCBA immediate past president, formally placed Black’s name in nomination during the annual General Session on Saturday morning. Wilson chairs the Past Presidents’ Council which nominated Black.
“The strength of this association lies in its membership, and in turn the leadership we select to carry out the mission of service to the public, the bar and the judicial system,” Wilson said. “This year’s nominee for president-elect has a record of service in all three of these areas that extends far beyond the ambit of this organization.”
The nomination was seconded by Anna Mills Wagoner, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of N.C., and Dick Taylor, executive director of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers.
In keeping with NCBA tradition, the past presidents ushered their new president-elect to the Sheraton Atlantic Beach dais after Black was elected by acclamation. The past presidents then stood by as she delivered a brief acceptance speech.
Black is a 1982 graduate of Davidson College, where she graduated cum laude with a degree in economics. She received her law degree from the Duke University School of Law in 1985.
The first woman from Cabarrus County to attend Davidson College, she was also the first woman to serve as an assistant district attorney in Cabarrus and Rowan counties. Black served in that capacity from 1985-88 before joining the Salisbury firm of Wallace Whitley Pope and Black, where she practiced until 1992.
Black has practiced law in Greensboro since 1992, until recently with the firm of Donaldson & Black and since the spring of 2006 with the newly formed Ward Black Law.
As president-elect, Black will chair the NCBA Finance Committee. She served on the NCBA Board of Governors, a prerequisite for nomination as president-elect, and the Executive Committee from 1998-2001. Black has also chaired the NCBA’s Strategic Planning Committee and the Litigation Section, and served as co-chair of the Tort Reform Task Force.
Her responsibilities within the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers include service as president-elect, legislative vice president, membership vice president, PAC Task Force co-chair, and two terms on the Board of Governors (1995-98 and 2005-present).
Black is also a member of the American Bar Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the N.C. Association of Women Attorneys and the Women’s Professional Forum of Greensboro. She has served as president of the Rowan County Bar Association and as a member and co-chair of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Advisory Panel.
Black is married to Greensboro attorney Gerard Davidson of the Smith Moore firm. Her stepsons are also members of the legal community. Clay Davidson serves as an asbestos litigation investigator with Ward Black Law while Walker Davidson is a paralegal at Ferguson Stein in Charlotte.
She is the daughter of Fran Holland of Kannapolis and the late Baxter Black.