As your outgoing chair of the NCBA Dispute Resolution Section, I am thankful and humbled by the work that our small but mighty section completed this year.

A special thanks to all of my committee chairs and to our internal leadership. Asa Bell will be chairing the section next year, and I know we will have another fantastic year. A special thank you to the folks at NCBA, but especially to Kyle Ballantine, our communities manager, who has been our rock the entire year (well, actually many years, but he was especially helpful to me).

To recap our successes this year, I want to point to our roundtable discussions. Frankly, they have been so successful that other sections are now hosting their own monthly roundtable discussions. And, Mecklenburg County has begun their own monthly roundtable discussions for various practice areas. I like to think that it is because of the work our section/council did, especially Ann Anderson and others who brainstormed the idea and then ran with it, that others are now hosting these important discussions to further our collegiality with each other and further the work in our various practice areas.

We had another successful annual meeting at the bar center. Stay tuned to learn about how future meetings may change so that the Dispute Resolution Section remains relevant to all practice areas. It is critical that attorneys and potential litigants learn and are exposed to alternatives to expensive and lengthy litigation.

Using remaining section dues, we were able to provide scholarships to individuals who wished to become trained in the collaborative law practice. And, we had additional funds that were used to support Legal Aid of North Carolina in their work providing access to justice for all.

Finally, a special thank you to Sarah Kromer and her committee, who are putting the final touches on a user-friendly document that will be available online for individuals, mostly pro se individuals, who can use this document to see what types of dispute resolution are available to resolve their conflict. We are excited about that document being uploaded sometime in the coming months.

Next year, we will continue to remain relevant by pushing the envelope on alternatives to lengthy and expensive litigation while also focusing on diversity and inclusion without our section. We encourage all members of our section to become active on a committee and continue to work together so that we can reach the most individuals possible who are desirous of resolving conflict outside of the courtroom.

Thanks to you all. As I step down, I am not going away. I have assured Asa, good or bad, that he can rely on me to assist with moving our section forward in the months to come. I appreciate you all and appreciate the opportunity to serve as your 2025-2026 chair of the Dispute Resolution Section.

July 2, 2026/by DisputeResolution