General Practice Hall of Fame Adds Seven

Article Date: Saturday, June 27, 2009

Inductees, from left: Bill Holdford, Billy Mayo, Meyressa Schoonmaker, Charles Clement, Hank Van Hoy, Mac Boxley and Bobby McNeill.

 

Seven outstanding lawyers were inducted into the North Carolina Bar Association’s General Practice Hall of Fame on Thursday evening, June 25, in conjunction with the 111th NCBA Annual Meeting at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville.

Attorneys comprising the 2009 induction class are John Maclachlan Boxley of Raleigh, Charles E. Clement of Boone, William Henry Holdford of Wilson, William P. Mayo of Washington, Bobby Burns McNeill of Raeford, Meyressa Schoonmaker of Winston-Salem and Henry P. Van Hoy II of Mocksville.

The Hall of Fame, sponsored by the NCBA’s GP, Small Firm and Solo Section, was established in 1989. Membership is granted in recognition of a lifetime of exemplary service and high ethical and professional standards and for serving as a role model for all lawyers in North Carolina.

To be eligible, lawyers must have practiced law for at least 25 years, a significant portion of that time having been devoted to the general practice of law, and be members in good standing of the N.C. State Bar.

Inductees have exhibited throughout their practice the highest standards of ethics and professional competency, and have rendered a high level of service to the legal profession and their communities.

This year’s induction class brings membership in the Hall of Fame to 119 attorneys.

John Maclachlan “Mac” Boxley
John Maclachlan “Mac” Boxley was born on Feb. 2, 1942, in Raleigh and has practiced law in there for over 40 years. He is a partner in the firm of Boxley, Bolton, Garber and Haywood which was formed in 1980.

Boxley graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1964 and from the UNC School of Law in 1967. He and his wife, Mary, have been married 43 years and have two daughters, Elizabeth, married to Chris Feeney, and Emily, married to Brian Huff, and two grandchildren, John Mac and Claire Feeney.

Boxley’s diverse general practice has included the trials of criminal and civil cases in state and federal courts, both defense and plaintiff’s representation in personal injury and wrongful death cases, condemnation litigation in state and federal courts, family law litigation and representation in various counties of the state, administrative litigation involving health care clients and Utilities Commission Hearings and filings. In addition, he has handled motor vehicle and ABC hearings and income, sales and use tax issues for clients with the N.C. Department of Revenue, as well as water, air, and mining issues before the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Boxley has represented various legislative clients for approximately 40 years, including the health care and transportation areas of practice, and helped draft various bills including creating a State Board and revision of our Cruelty to Animals statutes. He currently represents three association clients on an annual basis before the legislature.

Boxley’s office practice has included the drafting of Separation Agreements and Property Settlements, Pre-marital Agreements, Qualified Domestic Relations Orders, wills, the handling of estates and estate planning, drafting of contracts, leases, and real estate related documents, and he has handled real estate closings, searched titles, and worked with various corporate clients over the years. He has served as general counsel for two statewide associations for over 25 years and has handled many pro bono matters as well.

Boxley has been listed for the past 20 years in Best Lawyers in America, and is a recipient of The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, Kiwanian of the Year, and Amateur Award for Little League Baseball in Raleigh, and has an Alumni Room named in his honor by Phi Delta Theta Fraternity at N.C. State University despite being a double alumnus of UNC.

The Hon. George Bason, former Chief District Court Judge in Wake County, requested that Boxley represent some juveniles as the judge was seeking improved mental health facilities and treatment for juveniles. Various state officials were subpoenaed by Boxley to Bason’s Wake County courtroom to explain the problems in the mental health system affecting juveniles at that time.

Boxley’s state government involvement has included service under three governors: Bob Scott, Jim Holshouser and Jim Hunt. He served as a member of the Penal System Study Committee under Scott, as chairman of the N.C. Board of Paroles under Holshouser, and as a member of Gov. Hunt’s first three-person N.C. Board of Ethics. While at the Parole Board, the board was increased by the legislature from three to five members at Boxley’s urging and he helped start a new program pairing volunteers with inmates to help them transition back into society.

Boxley has served the North Carolina Bar Association as chair of the Young Lawyers Division, as a director of the ABA Young Lawyers Section, as a member of the Penal System Study Committee and on various family law councils. He continues to serve as a mediator in Superior and District Courts since his certification in 1995. Boxley served six years as the first vice chairman of the then newly created N.C. State Bar Disciplinary Hearing Commission.

Boxley is a strong supporter of community service activities and Christian-based organizations like the YMCA, Young Life, FCA, Campus Crusade and Bible Study Fellowship. His civic involvement has included leadership of various diverse groups like Haven House, Kiwanis, March of Dimes, ALS, New Bern Avenue Day Care. He served on the Peace College Board of Visitors, where he taught business law for six years, and also served as PTA president of three different public schools. He led a six-year effort to build a football, soccer and track stadium for his alma mater, Broughton High School, which at that time was the only high school in Wake County without its own stadium despite being built in 1929.

A 63-year member of the White Memorial Presbyterian Church, he has served as a deacon, elder, clerk of session and Sunday school teacher for many years with various age groups.

Boxley’s hobbies include time with his extended family, golf and fishing.

Charles E. Clement
Charles E. Clement was born in Valdosta, Ga., in 1939, the youngest son of Ed and Sue Clement, and grandson of a Methodist minister from Tennessee and a Mississippi cotton farmer. In 1944, he moved to Raleigh along with his parents and two older brothers, Ed and Bud. His interest in the law started at an early age. At 13, he was appointed by Sen. James H. Pou Bailey (later Superior Court judge) to serve as page to then Lt. Gov. Luther H. Hodges in the N.C. Senate, where he served for six consecutive sessions. The historic debates and subsequent passage of such legislation as court reform and mandated school integration had lasting impact on the young student.

Clement attended University of North Carolina, AB in 1961, and Wake Forest University Law School, JD in 1964, and was licensed by the State Bar the same year. He served as law clerk to the N.C. Supreme Court, trial attorney in the N.C. Attorney General’s Office and counsel to Gov. Dan K. Moore.

During his time with both governors Moore and Scott, he was appointed director of the state Crime Commission, where he oversaw development of the nation’s second (behind only California) computerized statewide Police Information Network and, along with the late Albert Coates and the Institute of Government, was instrumental in developing the state’s present-day law enforcement training program in our community colleges.

In 1967, Clement and Harold D. (Chris) Coley Jr. established a partnership in Raleigh, where he practiced until 1972, when, prompted by his love for snow skiing and the outdoors, he moved his practice to Boone and the North Carolina’s High Country.

Over the last 37 years, Clement has headed one of the preeminent law firms in western North Carolina. He has been heavily involved in business and real estate practice in the High County, including the Boone-Blowing Rock-Banner Elk area; and has served as counsel to a variety of the area’s resorts, including Hound Ears Club, Sugar Mountain, Beech Mountain and Grandfather Golf and Country Club. He served as Blowing Rock town attorney for 10 years, during which time he was active in the North Carolina City Attorneys Conference, serving as its president in 1987, and member of the board of directors of the N.C. League of Municipalities.

Clement is frequently called upon to serve as advisor, technician and litigator in complex real estate development, municipal and zoning matters and other property-related issues. He has served on a number of drafting committees which promulgated the present-day foreclosure statute, the Timeshare Act, the Condominium Act, and the statute dealing with weapons of mass death and destruction. He has a distinguished record before the North Carolina appellate courts, having successfully argued cases of first impression in the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, often resulting in precedent-setting case law.

Clement is a member of the American Bar Association and General Practice and Real Property sections, the North Carolina Bar Association and Real Property Section, and he served on the NCBA Board of Governors from 1999-2002. During his term on the Board of Governors, he was the first liaison for the newly formed Legal Assistants Division, now known as the Paralegal Division. He served as a member of the NCBA Technology Committee, Membership Recruitment and Retention Committee and Quality of Life Task Force. He is active in the local bar and has served as president of the 24th Judicial District Bar and Watauga County Bar Association.

Clement has enthusiastically and unselfishly devoted much time to community and church service. Over the years, he has served as a board member and chair of the Watauga County Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Boone Chamber of Commerce and Cannon-Sloop Health Care Foundation, co-founded and served as a board member of the Watauga County United Way and served an eight-year tenure on the board of trustees of Lees-McRae College. He served as the senior warden of the Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Valle Crucis and Standing Committee of the Diocese of Western North Carolina. He has been a member of the Appalachian Chorale and Blue Ridge Community Theatre and performed in numerous musical and theatrical productions.

Since 1983, Clement has served as chair of the Advisory Board of the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian State University, where he raised more than $13 million for the school. A member of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Trust board since 1996, he has been a part of reviewing and awarding in excess of $264 million in grants for the creation and preservation of natural and historic properties in North Carolina. Most recently, he has assisted the State of North Carolina in concluding the acquisition of Grandfather Mountain State Park in Linville and Elk Knob State Park in Boone.

Clement and Carolyn Howell Clement were married in 1969, and are the proud parents of two daughters, Mason and Catherine, both graduates of the University of North Carolina. The Clements are also extremely proud of their two grandsons, Clement (five years old) and Haines (three years old), the children of Mason and her husband, Eric Heistand.

William Henry “Bill” Holdford
William Henry “Bill” Holdford was born in Wilson on October 17, 1932. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1958 and the UNC School of Law in 1960.

Upon returning to Wilson after school and service in the U.S. Army, Bill Holdford started his practice with his brother Roy and his brother-in-law, Talmadge Narron, and the firm Narron & Holdford had its beginning. From 1961-65 Bill served as the prosecuting solicitor for the Wilson County Recorder’s Court.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, his general practice of law included all kinds of representation in court and doing the real estate title work on much of the property in Wilson County purchased for the construction of Interstate 95 and the expansion of Highway 264. He is the epitome of a general practitioner whose practice has mirrored the development of practice of law in North Carolina over the last 45 years. His general practice made it possible for him to narrow his scope as he as reached the later years of his practice to emphasize representation of plaintiffs in medical negligence claims.

Bill’s background included time as a defense attorney for State Farm Insurance Company and he has prepared wills and assisted families with the settlement of estates. He defended a number of high profile criminal cases. The most notable was a first-degree murder case prosecuted by his brother, Roy. The case was so bizarre it was the subject of a lengthy article in True Detective magazine. Even in recent years it is not unexpected to find him selling a farm at auction or participating in a hearing on foreclosure.

His practice now can best be described as general litigation. While he spends most of his time prosecuting medical negligence claims, he also handles a broad spectrum of other causes of action including legal negligence, workman’s compensation, personal injury, will contests and contract disputes.

While Bill Holdford is as comfortable in Traffic Court as he is in Supreme Court, he has also served his time in service to the profession. He was president of the Wilson County Bar Association from 1968-70, served on the Board of Governors of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers from 1974-77 and as its president, 1978-79. He is a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers since 1992.

Through his work with the North Carolina Bar Association as a “sustaining member,” Bill was selected as one of the founding members of the Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance Company Board of Directors and served in that capacity from the creation of the company until mandatory retirement. For more than 20 years he chaired the LMLIC Claims Committee assuring the vigorous defense of claims lacking merit and fair treatment of claimants with meritorious claims. In addition to his service to the profession in these activities, Bill’s service to the community has included time as Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 17, service to the Wilson Chapter of the American Cancer Society and a very active church participation including multiple terms in leadership as senior warden of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Wilson. When St. Timothy’s beloved rector, John A. Gray, retired after 26 years of service, Bill chaired the committee charged with finding a successor.

Bill Holdford is an outstanding member of the legal profession and a model for all lawyers, both in his practice and in his life. He has always exhibited the highest standards of ethics and professional competency and has encouraged other lawyers to maintain their standards and to keep them as a goal more important than making money. Bill is known by other members of the Bar for being a strong-willed, tenacious representative of his clients and opponents. He has been a mentor for many young attorneys in many ways and is respected by practitioners all across the state.

While his reputation now is more about his work in medical negligence law, he has been a general practitioner since 1960 and those around him are not surprised when they still see him take on the representation of any needy client in any area of the practice even today.

Despite all the miles he travels and all the hours he works, Bill Holdford is also an example of how attorneys need to experience the quality of life times outside the practice. In his 50s he was known to go hiking in the mountains, in his 60s he was even known to go skydiving. At approximately age 67 he was introduced to snow skiing by Jack Stevens, found it to be exhilarating and has since spent at least a week each year skiing in Colorado or Canada. For at least the last 30 years he has been known as an “intrepid sailor” with a boat of his own.

In recent years, he has been known to spend a good deal of time campaigning for his second wife, Elaine Marshall, for her re-election to Secretary of State. Bill exudes a happiness now in his practice and interpersonal relationships that is well deserved, after many hard working years of practice, and a period of time standing by his first wife, Joan, in her long illness preceding her death. Bill is the proud father of two daughters and grandfather to two grandchildren. In May of this year his granddaughter graduated with high honors from George Mason University.

Bill Holdford is a longtime practitioner who has always exemplified the best in the legal profession and been a beacon for those working around him on how best to serve a client, the profession and the community. His selection as a member of the General Practice Hall of Fame of the North Carolina Bar Association is welcomed by the other eight attorneys and 16 staff members of Narron & Holdford, P.A.

William P. “Billy” Mayo
William P. “Billy” Mayo was born on Oct. 9, 1926, in Asheville to John and Hattie Mayo and raised in Washington with his two brothers, John and Dan. After graduating from Washington High School he enrolled in UNC-Chapel Hill and was “asked” to join the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II where he served from 1945 to 1946. After the war he returned to UNC-Chapel Hill and received his undergraduate degree in 1949 in chemistry and in 1953 he received a LLB from UNC School of Law. 

Mayo’s legal career began in 1954 he worked as an administrative assistant for the N.C. State Bar and Board of Law Examiners until he moved home to Washington in 1957 and began private practice with his father, John A. Mayo, at the firm of Mayo & Mayo where he continues to practice today. Mayo has been admitted to both the N.C. Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.

He married the former Anna Ball Arthur of Raleigh, who died in June 2008, and has two children, Anna Ball Mayo Orton of Fredericksburg, Va., and William P. Mayo, Jr., of Washington, with whom he practices law today. He also has two grandchildren, Anna Lane Mayo and William P. “Patrick” Mayo III.

Mayo was the prosecuting attorney for the Beaufort County Recorders Court from 1957-68 and the Assistant Superior Court Solicitor from 1965-68. In 1968 he was asked to be the Beaufort County Attorney and has served as such for the past 41 years. Over these 41 years, he has seen numerous boards of commissioners come and go as the political landscape of Beaufort County has changed. However, the one constant in Beaufort County government has been “Billy.” He is a true Southern gentleman whose experience, advice and influence continue to be a calm voice of reason among unreasonable politicians when county issues are divisive. His peers recognized his unique talents as he served as president of the N.C. County Attorneys Association in 1987 and received the Outstanding County Attorney Award in 1982.

Mayo’s law practice has always been general in nature. He has never held himself out as a specialist in any particular area of the law. However, after 56 years of practice, he has a special knowledge of many different areas of law. He has handled adoptions, name changes, domestic matters, real estate transactions, prepared thousands of wills and power of attorneys, assisted clients with the probate of numerous estates and has served as Town Attorney for both Aurora and Belhaven. May has created and continues to serve as attorney for numerous drainage districts. He is known throughout the 2nd Judicial District as the local authority regarding “Torrens” and land registration. For many years, he assisted the State Bar with interviewing potential bar candidates.

Mayo was a longtime active member of the Washington Kiwanis Club. He served on the Salvation Army Advisory Board and on the Board of Directors of First Citizens Bank and the Washington Yacht & Country Club. He has served as both Deacon and Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington where he has been a member since childhood.

Bobby Burns McNeill
Bobby Burns McNeill was born May 12, 1931, the sixth son of John Knox McNeill and Beulah Lentz McNeill in Raeford. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1953 with a degree in business administration. After service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, McNeill attended law school at UNC on the GI bill, graduating in the spring of 1958. 

When he returned to Raeford to begin his legal career, there were four attorneys in Hoke County. McNeill split his time working part-time for three of them, including former member of the N.C. House of Representatives Charles A. Hostetler and longtime Raeford attorney Arthur D. Gore. After the passing of Mr. Gore in the fall of 1958, McNeill took a seat behind Gore’s old oak desk and partnered with Hostetler to form Hostetler & McNeill. The firm and the desk remain active to this day.

In the beginning of his career, McNeill did any kind of legal work that came through the door including family law, wills and estates, real estate, civil trial work and criminal defense. He took cases from the court appointment list and handled everything from minor traffic offenses to capital cases. He became the first person from his law school graduating class to argue a case before the N.C. Supreme Court. During his term as president of the 12th Judicial District Bar, the district became the first in North Carolina to get a full-time public defender.

As his practice grew, McNeill gave up the unpredictability of a trial practice and focused instead on real estate and wills and estates. Over the course of his 50-year career, he has handled an untold number of transactions, having a hand in, at one time or another, the transfer of practically every square inch of Hoke County and involving every type of loan or circumstance imaginable. McNeill has helped facilitate the steady growth of the county, including the unprecedented growth it experiences today.

As an attorney, he has always considered it his duty and privilege to offer counsel to his clients pursuant to the highest ethical standards and to humbly serve the community. He has served on the board of directors of the Hoke County Chamber of Commerce, was chairman of the Hoke County Young Democrats, served on the John Motley Morehead Committee for over 10 years and has agreed to speak on a number of topics to a great number and variety of organizations across the state. McNeill has been a lifelong member of the Raeford Presbyterian Church where, at various times, he has served as an elder and a deacon. In an effort to further cultivate the ability to offer comfort and counsel to all of his clients, he has also completed an extensive Stephen Ministry course.

Throughout his entire life, McNeill has held a great affection for the people of Hoke County. Likewise, they hold a great affection for him. He has served as an example of everything that is good about the legal profession by being a friend, mentor and role model to younger members of the bar and other public officials. McNeill is known throughout the community as a person of great competence and professionalism, as a man of integrity, fairness and high character and as a person with great compassion for and dedication to those in need.

Perhaps McNeill’s greatest accomplishment is winning the hand of the former Mary Elizabeth Teague and their 50-year marriage. He has three children: Robert Burns McNeill, who is a partner with Horack, Talley, Pharr & Lowndes in Charlotte; Thomas Edward McNeill, who is of counsel with Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson in Charlotte; and Mary Elizabeth McNeill, who is a senior staff attorney with North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services in Raleigh.

Meyressa Hughes Schoonmaker
Meyressa Hughes Schoonmaker, born and raised in Guilford County,  began practicing law over 40 years ago in Winston-Salem, when only a handful of bright and talented women were admitted to the bar and less than five percent of lawyers were female. She is the wife of John Carroll, mother of Kirsten and Trevor, and grandmother of three granddaughters. 

Schoonmaker began her university studies at Wake Forest College and spent her junior year at the Free University of Berlin in West Berlin. She earned her B.A. cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1962. After attending her first year of law school at Rutgers University School of Law, she received her juris doctor from Wake Forest University in 1968. She was a German major and taught German at the Salem College while attending law school.

She was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in 1968 and has been in private practice in Winston-Salem since that time as a partner in an all female firm, as a solo practitioner and as a board certified specialist in family law. She has served as the assistant to the president for legal affairs, associate general counsel and adjunct professor of law at Wake Forest University.

Today, she concentrates her practice in the areas of estate planning, wills and estate administration.

Schoonmaker established an outstanding reputation in the area of family law with substantial knowledge and familiarity with laws involving an equitable distribution of marital property. In 1979 she founded the North Carolina Center for Laws Affecting Women, a nonprofit research organization concerned with the role of women, children and families. Through internships at the center, Schoonmaker mentored many Wake Forest Seniors interested in family law and equitable distribution of property; some of whom went on to become attorneys themselves.

In 1980 Schoonmaker, a member of North Carolina Bar Association’s Family Law Section and its council, gave a presentation to the NCBA annual meeting entitled, “A Proposed Concept for the Equitable Distribution of Property in North Carolina.” A recent case, Leatherman v. Leatherman, 297 N.C. 618, 256 S.E. 2d 793 (1979) had caused a stir among family law practitioners regarding the state of marital property rights in North Carolina.

Leatherman held that a wife who worked in her husband’s business for many years, but did not own stock in the business, had no ownership interest in the business upon the dissolution of the marriage.

Recognizing the inequity of the court’s decision in this case and similar ones, Schoonmaker and the Family Law Section, acknowledging the failure of common law to remedy the injustice, made the adoption of an equitable distribution law in North Carolina a top priority.

Schoonmaker prepared the first draft of the equitable distribution statute (NCGS sec. 50-21) and the NCBA Board of Governors adopted the proposal as part of the NCBA legislative agenda. Schoonmaker undertook the mission of raising the awareness of the great need for an equitable distribution statute in North Carolina with her characteristic scholarship, dedication and commitment to justice. She worked late into the evenings, gave speeches to the bar, the legislature and the public.

Normally, such a major piece of social legislation would have been subjected to committee hearings and/or study commissions for a year or more. In this, almost singular instance, the proposed statute went on a fast track to a Senate Judiciary Committee where a subcommittee had one hearing and after suggested amendments, the bill was reported favorably to the legislature which considered and passed it into law the first time it was presented. Much of the credit for that result belonged to Schoonmaker for her outstanding research and draftsmanship which helped convince the legislators that North Carolina needed the law, but she gives much credit the N.C. Senators who co-sponsored the bill, the support of the governor and the NCBA. It was ratified on July 3, 1981 and was effective October 1 of that year.

In 1989, Schoonmaker again led the way in drafting  legislation to protect the victims of domestic violence, making it possible for those in need to obtain a 50B protective order pro se.

In addition to her outstanding work on the equitable distribution statute, Schoonmaker is widely recognized for her leadership and commitment to environmental protection and the advancement of equality for women.

She is a founding member and former president of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys, founded and led a local chapter of the National Organization for Women, served on the board of the NC Council for Women and worked for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Schoonmaker has also contributed her time and talent as a pro bono attorney for the protection of the environment. Pilot View Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to resource conservation and development, presented her with the 2006 Environmental Award for Outstanding and Dedicated Efforts in leading the development of the Upper Silas Creek Watershed Project.

Her efforts improved the quality of water protection for residents of the entire Yadkin River Basin.

Schoonmaker has received numerous awards for her contributions to the community, the environment and the rights of women and children. She has been recognized by the North Carolina Women’s Forum, the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Wake Forest University and the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs to name just a few.

She has been an active member of the community, serving many organizations, including but not limited to, the Forsyth County Legal Aid Society, the Forsyth County Department of Social Services, Family Services, Salvation Army Boys’ Club and the Family Policy Committee of the N.C. Agricultural Extension Service.

For over 40 years, Meyressa Schoonmaker has used her skills as a lawyer to make the world more just, the profession more ethical and the environment safer. She has done so with calm humility, dedication to service and commitment to scholarship. She has exhibited throughout her practice the highest standards of ethics and professional competency and has rendered a high level of service to the Bar and to her community.

Henry P. “Hank” Van Hoy II
Henry P. “Hank’ Van Hoy II was born on July 21, 1949, to Winona and Harper Van Hoy, growing up on a dairy farm in Union Grove. Van Hoy has been married to Polly Alexander Van Hoy for 36 years and is the father of three extraordinary sons: Brad, Scott and Matthew. He is the doting and proud grandfather of Ava, Lexi and Caroline. 

Van Hoy is a graduate of the undergraduate and law schools of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1974, he joined George W. Martin in Mocksville and began his engagement in the general practice of law. Working on the square in Mocksville, Van Hoy has had many opportunities to provide services to a wide variety of clients. He is very well regarded by the community at large. His home phone number has always been listed in the directory. Over the years, he has received numerous phone calls at home, after work hours, from a wide variety of clients, acquaintances, and strangers, seeking counsel and advice about a wide variety of matters. He invariably takes the call and renders assistance when needed.

In his 35 years at the bar, Van Hoy has handled a multitude of cases, from simple real estate transactions to much more complex litigation matters. Over the years, Martin & Van Hoy, LLP has grown to include six lawyers, still housed on the square in Mocksville. Van Hoy enjoys the high regard of his peers. He constantly exhibits the highest ethical standards and is well regarded by his clients, opposing clients, members of the bench and the bar. Each and every year, the firm has one or two law clerks. Van Hoy has served as a mentor for many young lawyers. Over the years, Van Hoy’s practice has expanded to encompass estate planning, civil and business litigation, contracts, commercial real estate and municipal law.

Carolina basketball, and sports in general, are among Van Hoy’s passions. He is well known in local recreational sports leagues, and pick-up games, as a fierce and relentless competitor. Whenever he travels to the Triangle area for business or pleasure, he always manages to travel by way of Chapel Hill. Van Hoy has served on the John Motley Morehead Committee for many years and is a past member of the UNC Law Alumni Board.

Van Hoy is a longtime member of First Presbyterian Church of Mocksville. He is an ordained elder and a long time Sunday school teacher. He has served on the Davie County Board of Elections for over 34 years, many of them as the board’s chairman. Van Hoy has also served with numerous organizations for the public good including the Mocksville Rotary Club (past president), Davie High School Advisory Board and as a coach for various recreation league basketball teams. A gifted orator, Van Hoy is often called upon to speak at community occasions. He can always be counted upon to deliver a speech that will resonate with the audience. He and his family continue to contribute many hours to host the annual Old Time Fiddler’s and Bluegrass Festival in Union Grove, now in its 85th year.

Van Hoy has served with distinction on many committees of the North Carolina Bar Association including the General Practice Section (past chair 1996-97), Judicial Independence Committee (past co-chair), Finance Committee, Nominations Committee (past chair), Long-Range Planning Committee, Personnel Committee, Lawyers in Schools Committee, General Curriculum Committee, Centennial Endowment Committee and the BarCARES Committee.

Van Hoy has been listed in the Best Lawyers of America in the Practice areas of commercial litigation and estate planning. He has served the North Carolina State Bar as chair of the Bar Candidate Committee for the 22nd Judicial District for many years and is a past member of the “Of Counsel” Committee as well as being a member of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. He has greatly cherished his associations with the fine lawyers he has served with on the various committees and revels in the exchange of ideas while pursuing the highest ideals of professionalism. He works tirelessly to promote the legal profession as a noble calling.

Van Hoy’s devotion to our profession was recognized in 1997 when he was nominated by his peers to serve on the NCBA Board of Governors, which he did with distinction from 1997 to 2000. Thereafter, Hank Van Hoy served as president of the North Carolina Bar Association in 2001-02, a tremendous honor for any lawyer, but a particular source of pride for those who are engaged in the general practice of law in small towns throughout our state.