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Public: Recent News

A virtual “Who’s Who” of legal professionals will receive awards this summer at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Bar Association, scheduled June 23-26 at the Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville.

Longstanding award programs – General Practice Hall of Fame, Pro Bono Service Awards – and a new public service award promise to attract large contingents of colleagues, friends and family members.

New to the awards agenda this year is the Dr. I. Beverly Lake Sr. Public Service Award that will annually recognize an outstanding lawyer in North Carolina who has performed exemplary public service in his or her community.

Murray Greason

Announcement of the award accompanied the establishment of the I. Beverly Lake Sr. Justice Fund. Murray C. Greason Jr. of Winston-Salem will be honored as the initial recipient during the General Session on Saturday morning, June 25.

The Hall of Fame inductees, who will be enshrined on Thursday evening, June 23, are Henson P. Barnes of White Lake, Stephen E. Culbreth of Wilmington, Thomas G. Dill of Rocky Mount, M.H. Hood Ellis of Elizabeth City, John C.W. Gardner Sr. of Mount Airy, Richard M. Hutson II of Durham, William R. Sigmon of Hickory and Lonnie B. Williams Sr. of Wilmington.

Awards for pro bono service will be presented during the President’s Luncheon on Friday, June 24. Christine Mumma, executive director of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Actual Innocence, will receive the William L. Thorp Award, presented annually to the Pro Bono Attorney of the Year.

The recipient of the Outstanding Legal Services Attorney Award will be Hazel Mack-Hilliard, while Lisa Gordon will receive the Younger Lawyer Pro Bono Award, presented by the NCBA Young Lawyers Division.

Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman, LLP, has been selected to receive the Large Law Firm Award, with the Outstanding Pro Bono Services Award for Smaller Law Firms going to Block Crouch & Keeter, LLP, of Wilmington.

The Duke University School of Law’s Guardian ad Litem Program will receive the Law Students Pro Bono Project Award.

Lake Award Unveiled

The voluntary service rendered by the recipient of the Lake Public Service Award may have occurred with a single non-profit organization or with a number of groups in the community as well as through public service in elective or appointive office.

Nominations are sought from all judicial districts and voluntary bars statewide and reviewed by the NCBA Past Presidents’ Council.

Dr. Lake, a former justice of the state Supreme Court (1965-78) and longtime law professor at the Wake Forest University School of Law, died in 1996. He is the father of I. Beverly Lake Jr. who has served as Chief Justice of the N.C. Supreme Court since 2000.

Judge Allyson K. Duncan, immediate past president, announced Greason’s selection at the spring meeting of the NCBA Board of Governors.

Greason has readily contributed volunteer leadership and expertise throughout a distinguished career of some 40 years. Perhaps most notable in a listing of his accomplishments is his service to Wake Forest University, from which Greason received his bachelor’s degree in 1959 and his law degree in 1962.

The chair of the WFU Board of Trustees since 2003 and a member of the board since 1991, Greason has also served on and chaired the WFU School of Law Board of Visitors, served as president of the national alumni association, was honored as the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1994, served on the board of directors of the WFU Baptist Medical Center and WFU Health Sciences, served on the WFU Alumni Council, and served as a trustee for The Denmark Fund of WFU.

Greason has also been involved in numerous other civic and church-related endeavors in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, including service as senior warden of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Greason practices with the firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice where he served on the Firm Management Committee for 24 years, including eight years as chair from 1988-96.

Recipients will have their names inscribed on the Lake Public Service Award plaque that will remain on permanent display at the N.C. Bar Center. They will also receive an honorarium of $2,500 that will be designated to the non-profit organization of their choosing, subject to the concurrence of the NCBA.

Hall of Fame Inductees

The Hall of Fame, sponsored by the NCBA’s General Practice, Solo and Small Firm 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 94 attorneys.

Henson Barnes experienced a successful legal career in Goldsboro that began as a solo practice in 1961 and concluded in 1997 when he retired from the six-member firm of Barnes, Braswell and Haithcock. Barnes served in the General Assembly, beginning in 1974 in the House of Representatives and continuing in the Senate from 1976 to 1992. The UNC School of Law graduate served as president pro tem during the final four years of his Senate tenure.

Steve Culbreth is a 1968 UNC School of Law graduate who built a successful general practice in the state and federal courtrooms of North Carolina. A founding board member of Legal Aid of Southeastern North Carolina, Culbreth has been an active member of the bar at the local and state levels. He served as president of the 5th Judicial District Bar in 1979-80 and represented the district as a State Bar councilor from 1990-98.

Hood Ellis, a 1975 graduate of the Wake Forest University School of Law, has since lived in Edenton and practiced in Elizabeth City. He started out with the late J. Kenyon Wilson before merging his practice with the LeRoy firm in 1985 to form what is today Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland. Ellis was elected president of the seven-county 1st Judicial District Bar in 1982 and chaired the State Board of Elections from 1989-93.

Thomas Dill is a New Bern native who earned his law degree in 1947 following service in the Navy during World War II. He established a solo practice in Rocky Mount in 1949 following two years as an associate with Blount & Taft in Greenville. Dill served from 1950-55 as prosecuting attorney and three terms (1955-60) in the N.C. House of Representatives. Now of counsel with Battle, Winslow, Scott & Wiley, Dill spent the bulk of his career (1957-2002) with the firm of Dill, Fountain, Hoyle & Pridgen.

John Gardner returned to his native Surry County in 1956 following graduation from the WFU School of Law and service in the Army during the Korean War. He has practiced law in Mount Airy ever since, at first with Wilson Barber and for more than 40 years in the Gardner & Gardner firm with his brother, the late Carroll F. Gardner. John Gardner became town attorney for Mount Airy in 1958 and the firm has represented the City of Mount Airy for most of the past 45 years.

Dick Hutson is a native of Bay Shore, N.Y., but he has called North Carolina home ever since coming to UNC to pursue the undergraduate degree that he received in 1961, followed by a law degree from the WFU School of Law in 1964. He clerked for Chief U.S. District Court Judge Edwin J. Stanley (Middle District, N.C.) before entering private practice in Durham. In 1967, Hutson joined the firm known today as Hutson Hughes & Powell and serves as senior partner.

Bill Sigmon is a Morganton native who graduated from the WFU School of Law in 1963 following service in the U.S. Marine Corps and undergraduate study at Lenoir-Rhyne College. He practiced separately with Emmett C. Willis Jr. and William Eugene Butler from 1963-67, maintained a solo practice from 1967-70, and also served as solicitor pro tem and judge pro tem of the Hickory Recorder’s Court. In 1970, he hired the first lawyer of the Hickory firm known today as Sigmon Clark Mackie Hutton Hanvey & Ferrell, where he serves as senior partner.

Lonnie Williams served in the U.S. Army before completing undergraduate and law school (1953) requirements at Wake Forest University. After serving as the state Supreme Court’s first law clerk in 1953-54, Williams returned to his native Wilmington and entered private practice. He later practiced with Addison Hewlett and then with the firm that became Poisson Marshall Barnhill & Williams. In 1963, he became a founding partner in the Marshall Williams & Gorham firm where he practices today. Williams is a past president of the N.C. Association of Defense Attorneys and the New Hanover County Bar Association.

Pro Bono Awards

Mumma, a 1998 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law, has devoted her legal career to innocence initiatives. Following clerkships with the N.C. Court of Appeals and Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. of the state Supreme Court, she worked full time, without compensation, on the emerging innocence projects at the Duke University School of Law, the UNC School of Law and the UNC School of Journalism.

Since its inception in 2002, Mumma has also served without compensation as the sole staff member of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Actual Innocence, and helps coordinate innocence programs at the Duke, UNC, North Carolina Central University and Campbell University law schools.

Mack-Hilliard currently serves as senior managing attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina-Winston-Salem. She is a graduate of the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, and has served as staff attorney and managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Northwest N.C., and as program director for Eastern Carolina Legal Services (now Legal Aid of North Carolina-Wilson).

Gordon is an associate in the Raleigh office of Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough LLP. She was honored last year by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as the recipient of an Award of Merit. A graduate of the University of Minnesota School of Law, Gordon has logged more than 300 pro bono hours on international abduction cases since 2001.

In keeping with the firm’s longstanding commitment to pro bono service over the past year, Kennedy Covington attorneys have provided more than 3,000 pro bono hours on behalf of the Navy landing field opponents who have been fighting plans to build a practice landing field on 30,000 acres straddling Washington and Beaufort counties.

Block Crouch & Keeter attorneys devoted more than 40 hours of pro bono representation last year in support of the firm’s commitment to providing access to equal justice. The firm participated in a family law clinic and assisted in incorporating Helping Our Latin Americans (HOLA), a non-profit group that provides outreach to the Hispanic population in southeastern North Carolina.

Twenty-two Duke law students have volunteered to serve during 2004-05 in the Guardian ad Litem pro bono group. The students make two- and three-year commitments to the pro bono program, thereby enabling children whose lives are frequently disrupted to experience long-term contact with the volunteers.