Remembering Past President Tony Hornthal (1936-2025)
Tony Hornthal began his first column as president of the North Carolina Bar Association with a confession: I am among those lawyers who went to law school with Atticus Finch as one of my role models.
“Indelibly etched in my memory,” Hornthal continued, “is the scene from the movie in which Atticus (Gregory Peck) is leaving the Alabama courtroom. The camera pans to the balcony. The dignified black minister says to Atticus’ daughter, ‘Stand up Miss Jean Louise, your father is passing by.’ As Atticus Finch walks out of the courtroom below, everyone in the balcony rises in respect.”
The passing of NCBA Past President Louis Phillip (Tony) Hornthal Jr. of Elizabeth City, who died on February 7 at the age of 88, conjured up memories of a real-life version of Atticus Finch. He existed not in the imagination of author Harper Lee or the film adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but in the legal community of North Carolina. He was a consummate professional whose words still ring true nearly three decades after his service as president of the North Carolina Bar Association and Foundation in 1996-97.
“Regaining the respect of the public and our self-respect will be the focus of my year as president of this association,” Hornthal stated beneath the headline reading “Lost Respect For Profession Can And Must Be Regained.” “I believe in the gospel we have preached. We are a noble profession. We are a high calling – there is no higher calling – for we are stewards of justice. We will regain our self-respect, and the respect of the public will follow, when most of us are persuaded that our work is essentially defined by moral imperatives and those imperatives are proclaimed by our daily lives.”
During his term as the 102nd president of the NCBA, Hornthal directed his attention toward three initiatives: alternative billing practices, access to justice in the wake of funding cuts to what was then known as Legal Services of North Carolina (now Legal Aid of North Carolina), and the education and training of new lawyers.
“Aspiring lawyers,” Hornthal stated, “must be educated and the rest of us recommitted to the notion that lawyers are counselors first and advocates second. Ours is a helping profession. Good lawyers assist their clients by avoiding, not fomenting controversy, and by helping them obey the law, not evade it.”
In 2017, the NCBA Professionalism Committee produced a one-hour program devoted to attorneys deemed to be among the icons of professionalism in North Carolina. It was titled “Professionalism: It’s Who We Are – Conversations with North Carolina Lawyers,” and Hornthal was among the first lawyers asked to participate.
“What a blessing it is to get to do work that is challenging and fun and of service to other people,” Hornthal stated during his interview, recorded in the Liberty Garden behind the N.C. Bar Center. “When I started practicing, I had been to school in Chapel Hill, and there was nowhere in this state where I didn’t know somebody. There was no county seat in North Carolina that I could not get on the phone and say, ‘Look, I’ve got a client I want to refer to somebody up your way,’ or to have people do the same with you.
“And that kind of fellowship and closeness, it’s always been a part of our bar. It’s been just a delight in what we’ve done and the enduring relationships you make with people that you have the chance to work on things with through the Bar Association. The Bar Association provides so many opportunities for you . . . to be of service to profession, and those opportunities invariably lead to your having connections with people that last all your life.”
“It has just been a delight,” he concluded, “to have work to do that you felt like was useful to your clients and often useful to your community and your state.”
Hornthal was born in Tarboro on October 16, 1936, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1958) and UNC School of Law (1963). He served as a law clerk for Justice William B. Rodman of the N.C. Supreme Court from 1963-64 and as a staff attorney in the Office of the N.C. Attorney General from 1964-65.
After arguing an appeal on behalf of the State of North Carolina before the Supreme Court against Dewey Wells, who also served as president of the NCBA, Hornthal accepted Wells’ invitation to join the Leroy, Wells and Shaw firm in Elizabeth City. The firm merged with Wilson and Ellis in 1985 and Hornthal practiced with Hornthal, Riley, Ellis and Maland until his retirement in 2018.
In addition to his leadership of the NCBA, Hornthal was a past president of the N.C. Association of Defense Attorneys, which honored him in 2011 as the recipient of the J. Robert Elster Award for Professional Excellence. He served on the Board of Directors of Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance Company of North Carolina from 1988-2012 and chaired its Claims Committee from 2006-12. He also served on the N.C. Judicial Standards Commission, the N.C. IOLTA Board of Directors, the Commission on the Future of Justice and the Courts in North Carolina, and as president of the UNC Law Alumni Association in 1991-92.
Hornthal was inducted into the NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame in 2019 and honored through the establishment of an NCBF Endowment Justice Fund that same year. The Hornthal Justice Fund was announced at a meeting of the First Judicial District Bar in recognition of the fact that he was the first attorney from his seven-county district (Gates, Chowan, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Camden, Currituck and Dare) honored with a Justice Fund.
He is survived by his wife of more than 61 years, the former Harriett Lang of Kinston; son Louis Phillip (Phil) Hornthal III and his wife, Kristy, of Elizabeth City; son W. Lang Hornthal and his wife, Ann-Patton, of Asheville; and grandchildren L.P., Will, Alex, Ellie, James, Ashe and Walker. He was predeceased by his parents, Mid and L.P. Hornthal, and his brother, Allen.
Son Phil Hornthal is a partner in Hornthal, Riley, Ellis and Maland and daughter-in-law Ann-Patton Hornthal is a partner in Roberts & Stevens. Both are longtime NCBA members.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.