Legal Practice Hall of Fame Award: Janet Ward Black
Janet Ward Black is the owner of Ward Black Law of Greensboro, one of North Carolina’s largest woman-owned law firms.
A graduate of Davidson College and Duke University School of Law, Black has been a leader in several prominent legal organizations. She served as the third woman president of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers (now NCAJ ) in 2002-2003 and the fourth woman to hold the presidency of the North Carolina Bar Association (2007-2008).
During her presidency of the NCBA, she pioneered the widely recognized “4ALL” program which recently celebrated its 18th year. 4ALL includes a Friday each spring in which NC lawyer volunteers answer North Carolinians’ legal questions by phone for free. More than 129,000 North Carolinians have talked to a volunteer lawyer since it began. More than 7000 NC lawyers have volunteered.
In addition, the 4ALL program has helped raise an endowment of over $3.1 million dollars through the NC Bar Foundation to address educational debt of lawyers working for Legal Aid of NC.
The first female assistant district attorney in Rowan and Cabarrus Counties, Black has mentored and inspired many women and girls during her career. For example, she has been the speaker at Tarheel Girls State on the “Legal System and Law as a Career for Women” for 35 years. More than a hundred rising high school girl leaders from across the state attend the week-long Girls State program each summer. Black served as Miss North Carolina 1980 and won a Grand Talent award at the Miss America pageant that year.
She currently serves as the Vice-Chairman of the board of Legal Aid of North Carolina, the state’s largest provider of free legal services to low-income North Carolinians.
Her firm’s mission statement is “seek justice, give generously, love lavishly.” Black’s firm has donated 10% of its gross revenue to nonprofits since 2013.