Get Involved: National Pro Bono Week

By Samantha E. Gordon

As the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “I tell law students . . . if you are going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, you have a skill — very much like a plumber. But if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself . . . something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you.”

The National Celebration of Pro Bono Week is October 25-31, and that means it is a week of celebrating pro bono! This pro bono week, I would like to share with you how you can make an impact in your community by providing legal services to those in need. #celebrateprobono
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Paralegal Spotlight: Joan Sprinkle, NCCP

By the Communications Committee

Joan Sprinkle

Paralegal Spotlight is the Division’s monthly publication designed to share Division members’ stories with colleagues, inspire present and future paralegal professionals, and strengthen awareness of the profession and association.

Each month, we select one amazing paralegal from among our membership and ask them to share about their personal and professional life. Join Paralegal Spotlight as we learn more about member talents, skills, personal and professional goals, technology tips, accomplishments, volunteer work, and more.

This month’s Paralegal Spotlight is on Joan Sprinkle, NCCP.
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When Children Reject Contact With a Parent

By Suzanne Chester

As a child’s attorney, I read an article by the child psychiatrist, Dr. Roy Lubit, with interest. The article is entitled “Valid and invalid ways to assess the reason a child rejects a parent: The continued malignant role of ‘parental alienation syndrome’” and is available in the Journal of Child Custody, 16(1): pages 42-66. Lubit’s article is loosely based on his review of fourteen child custody evaluations in which the forensic evaluator concluded the child had rejected a parent because of “parental alienation.” Lubit exposes the seriously flawed methodology and implicit bias which, he argues, led the evaluators to interpret the facts of the custody case through the lens of “parental alienation,” and to reach the foregone conclusion that “parental alienation” was responsible for the child’s rejection of a parent. By contrast, Lubit explores how a child’s rejection of visitation with a parent is much more often motivated by one of the following reasons: a) the child’s desire to remain with their primary attachment figure; or b) the child’s justified estrangement from a parent as a result of mistreatment or abuse; or c) a parent with major parenting deficiencies. As Lubit remarks: “[t]ragically for both justice and the welfare of children, conclusions concerning why a child rejects a parent frequently have more to do with who is doing the evaluation than the facts of the case and current scientific knowledge” (10).

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You’re Invited to a Corporate Counsel and Smith Anderson Thought Leadership Event!

The Corporate Counsel Section and Smith Anderson invite you to a unique thought leadership panel discussion, “In-House Counsel Career Paths: Moving Up, Moving Across, and Moving Outside.”

Our seasoned general counsel panel will discuss:

  • Advancing within your current legal department
  • Transitioning to business roles
  • Changing companies and your career
  • Challenges posed by COVID-19 to corporate counsel transitions

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Promoting the Practice – Championing Diverse Attorneys

Alison Ashe-Card

Leslie Pegram

By Alison Ashe-Card and Leslie Pegram, NCCP

One of the Minorities in the Profession Committee’s goals for this bar year is to continue to advance diversity and inclusion and racial equity efforts. One avenue to advance this goal is through recognizing diverse attorneys, legal professionals, and students for an award or recognition. The MIP Committee’s Awards/Recognitions and Blog Communications Subcommittee is charged with collating and communicating award/recognition opportunities. The Subcommittee encourages everyone to review these opportunities and nominate deserving diverse attorneys for an array of awards from organizations including the ABA, NCBA, and local county bar associations. For November and December, take the opportunity to nominate a diverse attorney who champions diversity and inclusion and embodies professionalism on a daily basis for one of the following awards.
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Judicial Review: A History of the Venue Requirement and a Statistical Analysis of Petitions for Judicial Review and Where They Are Filed

By Jack Nichols

History of the Venue Provision in the APA

In American law, North Carolina is the birthplace of judicial review. In 1787, eighteen years before Marbury v. Madison,[1] the Supreme Court of North Carolina not only issued the first reported decision, but also issued the first reported decision involving the principle of judicial review,[2] Bayard v. Singleton (1787).[3]
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Checking In: October 27, 2020

Connors Morgan is Now Revolution Law Group

Connors Morgan announced that the firm’s name is now Revolution Law Group. The new name derives from the firm’s current home, the Revolution Mill, located on the east side of Greensboro. The mill is a testament to the city’s history as it has stood for more than 120 years in its present location. Founded in 2005, Revolution Law Group serves Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem, and the surrounding Piedmont Triad region. Karen McKeithen Schaede and Scott Meyers are partners in the firm, and Jason Senges is counsel. Schaede, Meyers, and Senges offer a variety of legal services to businesses and individuals. In particular, they focus on health law, employment law, estate planning and administration, business law, civil litigation, and bankruptcy.

From left, Meghan Abernathy, Stacy Cordes and Ashley Foley.

New Firm, Cordes Law, Opens in Charlotte

Cordes Law, PLLC opened Oct. 1 in Charlotte. Stacy C. Cordes founded the firm, which includes attorneys Ashley C. Foley and Meghan L. Abernathy. All three attorneys have worked together since 2016. The firm will provide legal services in family law litigation, bankruptcy, and debtor creditor litigation. Cordes is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Wake Forest University School of Law, and previously served on the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBF Board of Directors. Foley and Abernathy are both graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and have both served on the Board for Women Lawyers of Charlotte and committees for the Mecklenburg County Bar and North Carolina Bar Association. Foley and Abernathy also volunteer for Council for Children’s Rights and Safe Alliance. All three attorneys are consistently selected as Super Lawyers, while Cordes and Foley have both been selected to Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite. Cordes, Foley, and Abernathy enjoy working together and collaborating in order to provide superior legal service to each client.

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Join the Bankruptcy Section for a Virtual Pumpkin Carving Event!

The event may be virtual, but the pumpkins (and libations) will be real. Join the Bankruptcy Section for a virtual pumpkin carving event — a pumpkin carving happy hour! This event is BYOPKLR (Bring Your Own Pumpkin, Knife, and Liquid Refreshments).

This pumpkin carving happy hour will be held via Zoom on Thursday, October 29, at 7 p.m. RSVP now at the NCBA Membership Event page.

If you have any questions, contact Julianne Dambro at [email protected].

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Clio’s Virtual Conference – The New Normal?

By Pegeen Turner

This year has had few bright spots, but the virtual Clio Cloud conference was one of them. Clio, the world’s largest cloud-based legal practice management system, has created a community of legal professionals that is pushing the envelope of legal and legal tech. I have been a Clio consultant since the early days and have attended all the Clio conferences, beginning in 2013, when there were only 250 of us, to this last virtual conference with more than 4,500 attendees.

Clio’s 2020 conference, aka ClioCon, did not start off as a virtual conference, but as 2020 shifted, so did Clio. In March, as the pandemic began, Clio‘s plans were upended for their popular in-person conference in October. Jack Newton, the CEO of Clio, had said that he would not consider a virtual Clio conference because all of the virtual conferences he had attended had been less than lackluster.

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Mey v. DIRECTV, LLC – The Fourth Circuit Broadens the Scope of the FAA to “Infinite” Arbitration Clauses

This post originally appeared on Wyrick.com and has been republished with permission. 

By Katie Ramseur

Arbitration provisions appear in millions of contracts that cover many different types of agreements and transactions. For decades, the United States Supreme Court has expanded the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), which facilitates contract-based dispute resolution through arbitration. Over the years, the FAA’s expansion has helped corporations adopt especially broad, boilerplate arbitration clauses that mandate arbitration for any and all disputes, claims, or controversies between any related party/agent/beneficiary/affiliate arising from or relating in any way to the underlying agreement, aptly named “infinite” arbitration clauses. See David Horton, Infinite Arbitration Clauses, 168 Pa. L. Rev. Online 633 (2020) (defining infinite arbitration clauses as “those that mandate arbitration for all disputes between any related party in perpetuity”). Infinite arbitration clauses are “relatively new and untested.” Mey, 971 F.3d at 287. In Mey v. DIRECTV, 971 F.3d 284 (4th Cir. 2020), the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals expanded the reach of the FAA in a significant way – by allowing corporations to enforce infinite arbitration clauses of a distant affiliate.

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