Doris Bray Serving as Chair of NCBA Senior Lawyers Division
Being first chair, as one writer so ably puts it, “means that you’re not only the best at your instrument, but you’re the leader of your group.”
The description certainly applies to Doris Bray of Greensboro, who is serving as chair of the NCBA Senior Lawyers Division in 2021-22. Over the course of a legal career filled with firsts, Bray has demonstrated her willingness to take on the challenges and responsibilities of leadership time and time again.
A native of Reidsville, Bray is a graduate of Lake Erie College (A.B.), Yale University (M.A.), and the University of North Carolina School of Law (J.D.) She has been increasingly active in the Senior Lawyers Division over the past few years, during which time she has transitioned into serving of counsel with the firm she co-founded, Schell Bray, and completed her service on the Lawyers Mutual Board of Directors. Bray was the first woman named to the board in 1983 and served until 2012.
Over the past decade, Bray has received richly deserved recognition for her accomplishments as a corporate and securities lawyer and the milestones she has achieved as a female lawyer. She received the Distinguished Service Award from the Greensboro Bar Association in 2010.
The founding chair of the NCBA Business Law Section, Bray received the section’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, in 2018. And just last year she was honored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law Alumni Association as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
From being the first female editor-in-chief of the law review to graduating first in her class from the UNC School of Law in 1966, suffice it say there was no stopping Doris Bray.
“I had a mother who was a very dynamic businesswoman, so I never thought I couldn’t do anything,” Bray stated in a 2014 interview for North Carolina Lawyer magazine. “I refused to be anything but first chair.”
The late James Dickson Phillips Jr., who began his tenure as dean of the UNC School of Law while Bray was a student there, helped her knock down a few doors, and Bray took it from there. Phillips recommended Bray to Judge J. Spencer Bell, who hired her as the first female law clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and recommended her to McNeill Smith, who hired her as the first woman to practice business law at the former Smith Moore firm.
Over the next 20 years, Bray proved herself time and time again as an exceptional lawyer. In 1987 she joined her mentor from Smith Moore, Braxton Schell, fellow partners Bill Aycock and Mike Abel, and Paul Livingston to form Schell Bray Aycock Abel & Livingston.
Bray served on the North Carolina General Statutes Commission for 20 years – a tenure that included service as chair and vice chair – and served on the drafting committees for the rewrites of the North Carolina Business Corporation Act and the North Carolina Nonprofit Corporation Act.
Bray also served on the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBF Board of Directors from 1977-80. She returns to serve on both boards this year as a member of their executive committees, on which she serves by virtue of her role as chair of the Senior Lawyers Division.
The Senior Lawyers Division is composed of NCBA members who are at least 65 years of age. Its purposes “shall be to uphold the honor of the profession of law, to apply the knowledge and experience of the profession to the promotion of the public good and to encourage adherence to the principles of professional courtesy among the members of the bar. The division shall promote the particular interests of the senior lawyer and plan and carry out programs, publications and activities of interest to the senior lawyer.”
The Senior Lawyers Division was established by the NCBA Board of Governors in 1988. In January 2019, the division assumed oversight of what is now known as the Legal Practice Hall of Fame, which includes lawyers previously inducted into the General Practice Hall of Fame.
The Senior Lawyers Division, which was forced to cancel its fall meeting due to the ongoing pandemic, hopes to gather in person next year on March 31-April 1 for its spring meeting in Litchfield, S.C.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.