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Public: Recent News

Allison Schafer, left, accepts award from Ann Majestic.

Allison Brown Schafer was honored Friday as the 2008 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award presented by the Education Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

The award was presented during the section’s annual meeting at the N.C. Bar Center in Cary. Ann Majestic, a former law firm colleague and previous recipient of the award, made the presentation.

Schafer serves as legal counsel and director of policy for the N.C. School Boards Association, a position she has held since 1998. She previously served as an associate (1985-92) and partner (1993-97) with Tharrington Smith in Raleigh, and as a law clerk for Judge W. Earl Britt from 1983-85.

A native of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, she is married to John C. Schafer of the N.C. Industrial Commission who is also an NCBA member. They have two children, Jennifer and Eric.

Schafer received her bachelor’s degree from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., in 1979. She earned her law degree from the Wake Forest University School of Law in 1983.

She served on the Education Law Section council from 1988-94. In addition, she has twice been a member of the executive council of the N.C. Council of School Attorneys, from 1989-94 and since 1996. She served as chair in 1998-99.

Schafer has also served on the executive council of the National Council of School Attorneys since 2003.

“Allison is one of the people that you can talk to on a lawyer-to-lawyer level or on a teacher-to-teacher level . . . and come away knowing that she is genuinely concerned about your question or situation,” her nomination noted, “and if she does not know the answer she will find it or help you find it.

“Allison has a great deal of experience in various areas of the law which has been helpful for her in the area of education law in which she has concentrated for the last 23 years.”

The award was established in 1990 to recognize “outstanding leadership by an attorney in the field of education law.” It is presented as merited to “an attorney who has a record of professional, community and personal achievement in the representation or affiliation with educational institutions, including public and private schools and colleges or universities, involvement with parents, teachers, faculty or administrators in the field of education law.”

Previous recipients of the award were Edwin Speas Jr. (1990), John Hardy (1991), Robert Phay (1992), Laurie Mesibov (1993), George Rogister Jr. (1994), Douglas Punger (1995), Wardlaw Lamar (1996), Ann Majestic (1998), Phillip Dixon Sr. (2003), Elizabeth “Betsy” Bunting (2004), Walter L. Currie (2005), John Gresham (2006) and Thomas Ziko (2007).