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Public: Recent News

The life and work of Judge H. Brent McKnight were formally recognized on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005, during a memorial service arranged by the Memorials Committee of the Mecklenburg County Bar.

Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Robert P. Johnston presided over the ceremony, which was conducted in Courtroom 3301 of the Criminal Courts Building in Charlotte.

Erna Womble, who succeeded McKnight as chair of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Professionalism Committee, presented a resolution honoring her longtime friend and colleague. (Click here to review the resolution.)

Jonathan Buchan, president of the Mecklenburg Bar, and Memorials Committee Co-Chair Ward McKeithan also participated in the program, which was attended by scores of colleagues and friends including members of the judiciary and the local bar.

McKnight’s wife, Beth, and their three sons – Brent Jr., Matthew and Stephen – attended the ceremony along with his father, Dr. Harold F. McKnight.

McKnight, a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of N.C., died Nov. 27 after a brief and brave struggle with cancer at the age of 52. A native of Mooresville, he grew up in Charlotte and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar, graduating in 1974.

He proceeded to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a degree in theology, and later returned to UNC where he earned his law degree in 1980. He served the state of North Carolina as an assistant district attorney for Mecklenburg County and was later named to the state District Court bench. He joined the federal judiciary as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in 1993 and was appointed U.S. District Court Judge by President Bush in 2003.

The NCBA Professional Committee recently honored McKnight by dedicating its new professionalism publication, “Lawyer to Lawyer: North Carolina Reflections on the Practice of Law,” to the former committee chair.

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Additional tributes to the Hon. H. Brent McKnight:

Click here to access an article written by NCBA Past President E. Osborne Ayscue that originally appeared in the January 2005 issue of the Mecklenburg Bar News.

Click here to read a eulogy delivered by the Rev. Leighton Ford during the Nov. 30 memorial service.