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Janet Ward Black of Greensboro was installed Saturday night as the 113th president of the North Carolina Bar Association, highlighting the 2007 NCBA Annual Meeting in Asheville.

Clark Smith passes ceremonial gavel to Janet Ward Black.

Judge Allyson K. Duncan of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who served as president of the NCBA in 2003-04, conducted the swearing-in ceremony. Black then accepted the ceremonial presidential gavel from outgoing NCBA President Clark Smith of Lexington.

The ceremony took place at the Grove Park Inn.

The new president of the NCBA will champion the cause of providing civil legal services to the poor. Black has established the NCBA’s “4ALL” campaign as the template for this endeavor, through which expanded funding for Legal Aid of North Carolina will be the focal point.

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The effort comes equipped with a separate component on the NCBA Web site, www.4allnc.org, through which four specific target areas – Educate, Legislate, Donate and Participate – will be addressed.

“We have the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than ourselves,” Black said in regard to the 4ALL initiative. “Justice for all is a founding principle of our democracy.”

The 4ALL initiative includes the establishment of the LANC Fund within the NCBA Foundation Endowment and an expansive statewide community service day which has been scheduled, appropriately enough, for April 4 (4/4), 2008.

A Kannapolis native, Black served as president of the N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers in 2002-03, and in 1980 served Miss North Carolina.

With her husband Gerard Davidson holding the Bible, Janet Ward Black of Greensboro, left, is sworn in by Judge Allyson Duncan as the 113th president of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Black is a 1982 graduate of Davidson College, graduating cum laude with a degree in economics. She received her law degree from the Duke University School of Law in 1985.

She was the first female assistant district attorney in Cabarrus and Rowan counties, serving in that capacity from 1985-88 before entering private practice in Salisbury, where she practiced until 1992. She has since practiced law in Greensboro, where she established Ward Black Law in 2006.

Black currently serves as a governor for the American Association for Justice, a trustee of the Roscoe Pound Foundation and a trustee for Hood Theological Seminary. 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 and has two stepsons, Walker and Clay. She is the daughter of Fran Holland of Kannapolis and the late Baxter Black.