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Legal Practice Hall of Fame Inductees Honored

The 2022 induction class of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Legal Practice Hall of Fame was honored on Friday, June 24, at the 2022 Annual Meeting in Winston-Salem during the Awards Dinner and Presidential Installation.

This year’s inductees are:

  • Richard T. Boyette, Cranfill Sumner LLP, Raleigh
  • Kenneth Greene, Carruthers & Roth, P.A., Greensboro
  • Joseph C. Moore, III, Allen, Moore & Rogers, Raleigh
  • Sharon Lee Parker, solo practitioner, Marion
  • W. Gerald Thornton, Manning, Fulton & Skinner, P.A., Raleigh

Front, from left, inductees Richard Boyette, Kenneth Greene, Jody Moore and Sharon Parker. Back: Executive Director Jason Hensley, President Jon Heyl and Ed Gaskins, who presented the awards on behalf of the Senior Lawyers Division. Not pictured, Gerald Thornton, who had a previous commitment.

This is the fourth induction class for the renamed General Practice Hall of Fame, which was established in 1989 by the General Practice Section and now includes 178 members. The NCBA Senior Lawyers Division has solicited nominations and selected the inductees since 2019.

The Legal Practice Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding lawyers whose careers have served as models for other lawyers. Legal Practice Hall of Fame lawyers have exhibited throughout their practice the highest standards of ethics and professional competency and have rendered a high level of service to the bar and to their communities.

Learn more about this year’s inductees from biographical information provided in the awards dinner program.

Richard T. Boyette
Richard T. Boyette serves of counsel at the Raleigh office of Cranfill Sumner LLP. He has engaged in a broad civil litigation practice, most recently focused on the defense of lawyers and other professionals, and product liability defense.

As outside general counsel to a commercial general contractor/developer, he has provided representation in a range of issues that have included contract, construction and contract disputes, entity formation, land acquisition, construction, and permanent financing and leasing. He has been an active mediator since the early 1990s and has mediated almost 2,000 disputes in a broad range of subject matters. He has held bar leadership positions at the national (past president, DRI-The Voice of the Defense Bar), state (past president, N.C. Association of Defense Attorneys) and local (past board member, Wake County/Tenth Judicial District Bar; past member, Tenth Judicial District Grievance Committee) levels.

He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC School of Law.

Kenny Greene
After graduation from the University of Virginia Law School and serving on active duty with the JAG Corps of the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, Kenny Greene joined the Greensboro law firm of Carruthers & Roth, P.A. where he has practiced law for the past 48 years. His practice has focused on a wide variety of transactional matters involving capital markets, including secured real estate, commercial and other asset-based loans, factoring, mergers and acquisitions, as well as a broad spectrum of creditors’ rights and remedies including business bankruptcy.

Kenny has been active in the NCBA and perhaps is the only person in NCBA history to receive lifetime achievement awards from two sections. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Business Law Section’s Distinguished Service Award and in 2019 he was the recipient of the Bankruptcy Section’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

He has been instrumental in the NCBA’s sponsorship of various modernization statutes that have been enacted by the General Assembly, including the North Carolina Commercial Receivership Act, the Act Validating Reciprocal Attorneys’ Fees Provisions in North Carolina Business Contracts, the North Carolina Choice of Law and Forum in Business Contracts, and the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act.

Kenny’s bar activities also include an active role in the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association and service on two of that section’s task forces. He has also authored the North Carolina chapters of two publications of the ABA. Kenny is also a past fellow, regent and president of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers.

Jody Moore
Jody Moore was born in Raleigh and has practiced law there since 1974. He has worked at the N.C. General Assembly, the N.C. Attorney General’s Office and has practiced law with the firms of Young, Moore & Henderson and Allen, Moore & Rogers. His practice has focused primarily on civil litigation, but he has also practiced in the areas of construction law, insurance, real estate, wills, trusts and estates, and has served on several non-profit boards.

In terms of bar activities, he has been a board member of the Wake County Bar Association and chair of the State Bar’s 10th Judicial District Bar Candidate Committee. He has also served the NCBA as a CLE speaker and as a member of the Civil Practice and Procedure, Nominating, Administration of Justice and Group Insurance committees.

He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University School of Law. He is married to Martha Davis Moore, a retired elementary school teacher in the N.C. public schools. They have four children: Bill, Caroline, Lizzie and Janie, and are members of White Memorial Presbyterian Church, where Jody has served as a deacon and elder.

Sharon Lee Parker
Sharon Lee Parker has operated a solo practice in Marion since 2013, focusing on business law, estate planning, and estate administration. Prior to her solo practice, Parker spent more than 20 years with Dameron, Burgin & Parker, PA representing medical malpractice carriers and health care providers in malpractice defense litigation, defending criminal cases including capital cases, and providing general legal advice to regional hospitals and health care providers.

Parker is chairperson of the Board of Directors of Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance of North Carolina, having served on the board since 1999 and serving six years as chairperson of the Claims Committee. Parker served as co-chair of the first NCBA Commission on the Status of Women in the Legal Profession, on the Board of Governors of the North Carolina Bar Association, and on the NCBA Litigation and Health Law Section Councils.

She was co-recipient of Gwyneth B. Davis Award in 1993 from the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys for outstanding contributions to the promotion of women lawyers and the rights of women under the law. In 2015, Parker received the NCBA Citizen Lawyer Award.

With a long record of volunteer community and civic service, Parker has been recognized with the Governor’s Medallion Award for Volunteer Service, the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the McDowell County Duke Energy Citizenship and Service Award, and the Rotary Club of Marion Service Above Self Award.

Parker is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an honors graduate of the UNC School of Law.

W. Gerald Thornton
W. Gerald Thornton is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1964) and UNC School of Law (1967). He began his legal career as a tax attorney in the Chief Counsel’s Office, Internal Revenue Service, in Louisville, Kentucky. He joined Manning, Fulton & Skinner, P.A. in Raleigh in 1970, focusing his practice on business, tax and estate planning law.

Thornton has been active in the NCBA throughout his career, serving on the NCBA Board of Governors from 1988-91 and as chair of the Tax Section in 1982-83. He has lectured at numerous CLE events, served on the Bar Center Building Committee, and helped the Board of Governors analyze and determine the feasibility and financing for the construction of the Bar Center.