By Ketan Soni
Your new chair, Jill Jackson, comes on board next week!
Here’s where I started last July.
After reading this post, ask yourself:
“What have I done to make things better?”
The answer, partially, is:
“Helping clients endure through one of the most difficult times in their lives.”
Kate Dieter-Maradei
By Dawn LaRue
When asked about her caseload as a mediator specializing in Workers’ Compensation and employment disputes, she replied, “It’s wild! I have a frenetic caseload!” Any mediator worth their salt can enjoy a great work/life balance, filling their calendar with as much work as they choose to accept. What distinguishes Kate from many of her colleagues is that she adds an extra element to her personal balance: a passion for social justice. This passion is articulated in every aspect of her life. This dedication to her craft and her cause has earned Kate repeated recognition from both within and beyond the legal community.
Kate gives freely of her time, talent, and energy very literally. For the past 13-14 years, Kate has blocked two to three days each week for pursuing both pro bono projects and community causes. That’s an extraordinary 50% of each work week! And for more than a decade! With that time, Kate has spearheaded several community-building initiatives. Kate has even woven her fervor for inclusiveness into the fabric of her family. Kate and her husband, Nick Maradei, are trans-racial adoptive parents, having adopted at birth two African American daughters to complete their family along with their biological son.
There’s a singular event that prompted Kate to invest even more of herself to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion. The senseless killing of Minnesota motorist Philando Castile on July 6, 2016, rocked Kate to her core. As a mother raising two African American daughters, she became increasingly concerned for their personal safety. For Kate, action is the antidote to anxiety. She asked herself a searing question: what are we doing to facilitate community dialogue between law enforcement and black/brown communities?
The outworking of her search for an answer resulted in tremendous opportunities to bridge the racial divide. Kate formed strategic partnerships to help achieve her goals. One such initiative is the Project for Equitable Access in Remote Learning, or PEARL, a program aimed at closing the equity gap in education by providing mentors, and during the height of the pandemic,
in-person tutoring for students attending SE Raleigh High School. Kate’s desire was to provide for underprivileged youth what affluent parents were able to provide for their children. Kate also helped organize several vaccine clinics during COVID. Kate has also lent her expertise to a non-profit called “Boots on the Ground,” which is committed to targeting community violence intervention by facilitating dialogue between law enforcement and black communities.
Kate has been the driving force behind an initiative of the NCBA’s Dispute Resolution Section called Try Someone New: Diverse Mediator List. This resource enables parties from varied backgrounds to select a mediator who not only best reflects their own skin color but also brings unique life experience and multiple perspectives to the table. For her exemplary efforts, she was professionally recognized in the Triangle Business Journal’s People on the Move in Raleigh/Durham in 2014. Here’s what they had to say about Kate more recently: “Her focus and commitment to equity allow her to make a measurable difference.”
Kate remains quite humble despite the numerous awards for which she has been nominated, including the NCBA’s Citizen Lawyer Award and the Thorp Pro Bono Service Award. When asked what has meant the most to her over her career, she recounts an impassioned story about a successful pro bono lawsuit she filed in another state to recover legal fees stolen by a shyster attorney in another state. The recovered money allowed the family to purchase a specialized wheelchair for their eldest daughter. Thanks to her native-level speaking ability in Spanish, more than one immigration attorney has called on Kate to help obtain affidavits for their clients. If it were up to Kate, we could erase decades and decades of systemic racism in a single generation. But only if each of us grabs a shovel and helps dig.
Kate is a woman who has poured herself into her passion for achieving social justice. Each facet of her life reflects a different aspect of her living out an amazing life balance that gives her outlets for all of her creativeness and boundless energy. And if she were not doing enough during COVID, she also collaborated with her very talented friend to create a virtual concert for hospital patients and retirement communities called Sunshine Songs. Oh, and there’s also an annual, now large-scale, MLK event the family started to honor their daughters’ cultural heritage. In short, Kate is a one-woman force for good!
Dawn LaRue is a member of the NCBA Pro Bono Committee Recognition Subcommittee.
The 2022 Internal Revenue Service Data Book contains audit statistics for years 2012 through 2020, as of the fiscal year ended September 30, 2022 (FY 2022). For tax years 2018 and earlier, the statute of limitations for audits had generally expired as of September 30, 2022. However, for 2019 and 2020 returns, the statute of limitations has yet to expire, so additional returns of those years may be audited.
For 2012 through 2018, audit rates dropped significantly. For example, individual tax returns had an audit rate of 0.8% for 2012 returns versus 0.3% for 2018. In addition, for individuals with income between $1 million and $5 million, the audit rate dropped from 4.9% for 2012 returns to 1.2% for 2018 returns.
The overall audit rate for C corporations dropped from 1.3% for 2012 returns to 0.5% for 2018 returns. For partnerships and S corporations, the audit rate for 2012 returns was 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively, compared to 0.1% and 0.1% for 2018 returns.
In FY 2022, 21.4% of audits were field audits. The others were correspondence audits.
Jennings Law opened in Raleigh on April 1, 2023. Barry Jennings, owner of Jennings Law, is a Board Certified Specialist in North Carolina workers’ compensation law and a North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission Certified Mediator. Jennings has practiced law since 2003. He has represented insurance carriers and employers at Hedrick Gardner Kincheloe & Garafaloe, LLP and individuals at The Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, where he was a partner. Jennings focuses his practice on mediation and believes that mediation is one of the most powerful tools available to parties in civil disputes and North Carolina workers’ compensation claims. He served as chair of the NCBA Workers’ Compensation Section from 2020-2021. Jennings graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law. He holds a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina State University.
By Terri Jones
In Part 1, you were introduced to the past Chairs of the Government & Public Sector Section. I had the privilege of interviewing seventeen past chairs of the section. In addition to telling us what they remember most about their time as chair, they also responded to these three questions:
What impact has the GPS Section had on your career in public service?
What do you tell law students about careers in public service?
What could the GPS Section do that it has not done already?
By Terri Jones
We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Government & Public Sector as a section of the North Carolina Bar Association! Many talented and dedicated attorneys have chaired this section over the years. The section was the brainchild of Jeff Gray, who also served as the 2005-2006 Chair. In 1998, Jeff originally pitched the idea to NCBA Leadership, and an exploratory committee was created. At the time, Jeff had been in the Attorney General’s Office for 11 years and saw the benefit of NCBA membership, but there were very few active government attorney members. Jeff reports that Dan McLawhorn was one of the few active members, and so Dan became a member of that exploratory committee. Dan recalls that at the time, there was a 100-member threshold. Dan went on to be the first chair of the section.
Spencer Fritts
Meredith Brewer
By Spencer Fritts and Meredith Brewer
The winners of the 2023 North Carolina Legal Feeding Frenzy were recognized on Monday, May 1, by Attorney General Josh Stein.
The Legal Feeding Frenzy is an annual collaborative effort of the North Carolina Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, the North Carolina Foundation Endowment, Feeding the Carolinas, and the North Carolina Attorney General.
Meredith Brewer and Spencer Fritts, co-chairs of the YLD Legal Feeding Frenzy Committee, along with Mike Darrow, Executive Director of Feeding the Carolinas, participated in the remote award ceremony.
Section 6501 provides the statute of limitations for the IRS to assess additional tax. Equally important is Section 6502, which provides the statute of collections (sometimes referred to as the collection statute expiration date or “CSED”). The statute of collections generally provides the IRS must collect a tax within 10 years of assessment.
The CSED permits a tax to be collected by levy or a court proceeding only if the levy is made or the proceeding had begun before the CSED. Section 6502(b) provides the date on which a levy is made is the date the notice of seizure is provided to the taxpayer as required by Section 6335(a). As to a seizure that is made by court order, the proceeding begins upon the filing of the IRS’s suit against the taxpayer. The statute of collections does not expire after the proceeding is concluded until the tax is satisfied or the judgment becomes unenforceable. Thus, the CSED cannot be used to defeat the IRS’s right to collect a judgment entered by a court.
The 2023 Pro Bono Award winners have been selected and will be recognized during the NCBA Annual Meeting on Friday, June 23 in Wilmington. The recipients are:
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