Judge Diane Phillips Greene Receives 2025 Liberty Bell Award
District Court Judge Diane Phillips Greene of Robeson County is the 2025 recipient of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Liberty Bell Award. The award was presented by the NCBA Young Lawyers Division in Raleigh on Friday, May 2, in conjunction with the annual observance of Law Day.
Greene has served on the District Court bench since 2021. Prior to her appointment, she operated Surgeon Law Firm, PLLC and the Elder Care Resource Center in Lumberton and served as the county’s Guardian ad Litem Attorney. Greene has called Robeson County home throughout her legal career, beginning with her service as the Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with what is now known as Legal Aid of North Carolina.
Her selection by legendary civil rights attorney and leader Julian T. Pierce began a series of firsts for Greene as the first African American female attorney in Robeson County. She has also served as the county’s first African American assistant public defender and the Robeson County Bar Association’s first female president.
Greene is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University and the University of North Carolina School of Law. She is originally from Goldsboro, a connection she shares with fellow NCBA member Gina Regan, who nominated Greene for this award.
“Diane P. Greene is a mentor and role model that I look up to and admire for her leadership in the community of Robeson County and the state of North Carolina,” Regan stated. “As a 3L law student, Diane was an inspiration to me to keep going and to reach my law school goal of graduation as well as passing the North Carolina bar on the first try.”
“Diane’s leadership in the community started, before I knew her, in our hometown of
Goldsboro, where she was the classmate of my older brother. Diane went on to graduate from college as the valedictorian of her class and immediately went into law school at UNC-Chapel Hill. Over the years, Diane has shown that hard work and perseverance are the keys to success.”
In closing, Regan denoted Greene’s remarkable commitment to the citizens of Robeson County that dates back to the fall of 1980.
“It was my first job when I finished law school,” Greene recalled. “I was placed with (Lumbee River) Legal Services in Robeson County, and I absolutely loved it. It was a blessing, really. I was hired by Julian Pierce, and he allowed me to flourish. Being a very young, ambitious lawyer, I figured I’d have almost everything straightened out in six months and it would be finished! It was really amazing. He just allowed me to soar.”
Six months evolved into more than four decades, during which time Greene has carved her own legacy, for which she has been recognized as a recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
“It has been amazing,” Greene said. “I was scheduled to transfer from Robeson County to Fayetteville because Legal Aid was opening a branch office in Fayetteville. I was supposed to be in Robeson County for just six months or so and then transfer to Cumberland County, which would be closer to Goldsboro. That was just where the fellowship was supposed to be, but there were some challenges with getting that branch office opened, and I just got involved in the community in Robeson County.
“I started working with women’s groups and working on domestic law issues where I did seminars every week for women across the county. I started doing domestic violence training for the Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department, clergy, to just help them to understand the position of victims of violence, because focused assistance and resources for victims of domestic violence were not available in Robeson County.”
Greene also established a Domestic Law Unit and the Southeastern Family Violence Center, which is a shelter for battered women and children that remains in operation to this day.
By the time the branch office did open, Greene continued, it was too late for her to move.
“At that time, I needed to continue doing what I was doing, and Julian absolutely agreed. But some two years later, I did eventually go to the branch office to work, in fact, as the managing attorney. But, even then, I continued to live in Robeson County. By then I had joined the church. I was involved with community organizations. I was a part of Robeson County.
“I helped to get the Robeson County Black Caucus off the ground and helped write their articles of incorporation and bylaws. I just became a member of the community which was very accepting and excited to have this young Black woman who they had never seen – I was the first Black female to practice law in Robeson County.”
Judge Diane Phillips Greene, center, displays Liberty Bell Award with Gina Regan, left, who presented the award, and Sidney Thomas, Law Week/Liberty Bell Award Committee co-chair.
Earning such a distinction did not come without some growing pains.
“One of my first experiences, I had this older lady, she was Lumbee, come into Legal Aid,” Greene explained. “I was working with her on what I think was probably a housing issue, I really can’t remember. But what I distinctly remember is as I was working with her on her initial interview, she seemed very inattentive toward me. She just kept looking around and she was very fidgety.
“Finally, I said to myself, ‘Diane, you’re not getting anywhere with this interview. You need to find out what’s really going on.’ So I just stopped, and I said, ‘Ma’am, is there something that’s going on that we need to talk about, because you aren’t looking at me? You’re not focusing.’”
It wasn’t personal!
“Well,” the lady responded, “you’re just a really nice young lady, but I thought I was going to see the lawyer today.”
The client was stunned when Greene proclaimed that she was the lawyer.
“She said, ‘Oh, my God, a woman.’ And I’ll be honest with you, I said to myself, ‘and Black too!’ I went to Julian and let him know that she was very concerned about having me as her lawyer. She didn’t ask to change. I would have offered that to her, but Julian said, ‘No, you need to do the case.’ So I will tell you, as I do with many of my cases, most of my cases in fact, I said a prayer. I said, ‘Lord, please let me win this one, because if I don’t, she’ll believe it was because she had a female attorney.’”
Another recollection, this one from Superior Court Judge Tiffany Powers, sheds additional light on Judge Greene’s affinity for the community.
“When I was out in the community – she told me this – I went to her Girl Scout troop to speak,” Greene said. “And she told her mom after I spoke to them that she wanted to become a lawyer because she saw this Black woman who looked just like her and ‘she’s a lawyer, and I want to be a lawyer too.’ She said that was one of the reasons that she became a lawyer, and now she’s also a judge.
“So I feel that I was placed in Robeson County because that’s where I was needed.”
The same can be said for why she became a lawyer.
“I just love helping people,” Greene said. “I love to talk. And I think our constitution, our judicial system, our rule of law, is what sets us apart. I think it is important for us to have faith and trust in our judicial system. We ask people to trust it, and that’s the reason I think it’s important that those who are lawyers and judges and prosecutors do the right thing for people when they trust us enough to come into the courts and allow the system to work to help them to resolve their various issues and concerns.
“I tell people all the time, ‘I know you don’t really want to come to court.’ Most people don’t want to come to court. But I think it’s important for people, if they are not able to resolve their matters without coming to court, they need to come. And then when they do come to court, they need to be able to trust that the system is going to be fair, respectful, and that they’re going to be heard.”
Trust and respect, Greene added, should never be taken for granted.
“I think it’s incumbent upon me – certainly when I was practicing as a legal services attorney and as a public defender – to do my part to know the law, to work my case, to do everything I could to be a strong advocate for my client, and also be respectful of the other side,” Greene said. “That’s what I also do as a judge. I work very hard to know what the law is, to listen carefully as I make decisions, because as a District Court judge, I really consider what we do to be the most critical.
“We see people more in their everyday lives, I call it ‘People’s Court’ because we’re dealing with families and children and landlords and tenants, and we just have to do our best to get it right every time. I try hard to do that. I work very closely with the bar making sure that lawyers can be heard. I give them courtesy and respect and value their time and their commitment to being strong advocates, because I’ve been where they are as well.”
The Liberty Bell Award has been presented annually by the Young Lawyers Division since 1983 to an individual “who has strengthened the American system of freedom under law.” Greene admits that she was “absolutely floored” to add her name to the distinguished listing of recipients.
“And that’s because in my mind, this award is so prestigious because of the past recipients who have been honored. I know many of them, and I know their work. I know their service. I know their commitment. And for me to be among those recipients is just mind-boggling.
“I know so many of them. I was in law school with some of them. Congressman Mike McIntyre and I worked with the Young Democrats together when I first got out of law school and came to Robeson County with my fellowship, and it was just wonderful.
“I know former Justice and now Dean Patricia-Timmons Goodson – she swore me in at my Judicial Investiture – and I so admire former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley. And Judge Herbert Richardson swore me in as a lawyer!”
The recognition, Greene stated in her acceptance remarks, “gives me pause, because the difficult, emotional, painstaking hard work I have done for my entire career has never really felt like work. It is just my passion, dedication and commitment to truly serve the public – to do everything I can to enhance life for others.”
Judge Diane Phillips Greene has done just that and so much more in earning her place among the distinguished recipients of the Liberty Bell Award:
2025 – Judge Diane Phillips Greene
2024 – Judge Paul Jones
2023 – Justice Samuel James Ervin IV
2022 – Cheryl Howell
2021 – Chief Justice Cheri Beasley
2020 – Congressman Mike McIntyre
2019 – Chief Justice Mark D. Martin
2018 – Judge James A. Wynn Jr.
2017 – Chief Judge Linda M. McGee
2016 – Judge A. Elizabeth Keever
2015 – Judge Sammie Chess Jr.
2014 – Maj. Gen. (Ret.) James B. Mallory III
2013 – Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson
2012 – Judge W. Earl Britt
2011 – Justice Harry C. Martin
2009 – U.S. Attorney Janice McKenzie Cole
2008 – Stacy C. Eggers Jr.
2007 – Judge R. Maurice Braswell
2006 – Judge Herbert L. Richardson
2005 – William Joslin
2004 – Chief Justice Henry E. Frye
2003 – Judge Robert R. Browning
2002 – Judge Lacy H. Thornburg
2001 – Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.
2000 – William C. Friday
1999 – Judge Sam J. Ervin III
1998 – Senator Terry Sanford
1997 – Herbert H. Taylor
1996 – Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr.
1995 – Wade E. Brown
1994 – Judge Hiram H. Ward
1993 – Kathrine R. Everett
1992 – Congressman L. Richardson Preyer
1991 – Justice J. Frank Huskins
1990 – McNeill Smith
1989 – Judge Franklin T. Dupree, Jr.
1988 – Secretary of State Thad Eure
1987 – Chief Justice Joseph Branch
1986 – Dr. Robert E. Lee
1985 – William B. Aycock
1984 – Chief Justice Susie M. Sharp
1983 – Senator Samuel J. Ervin Jr.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.