Welcome to a New Bar Year!

By Amy E. Richardson

“I believe in hope. I believe in BELIEVE.” – Ted Lasso

When I started to practice law in North Carolina, the Litigation Section was critical to making me feel at home. It was a source of information, legal education, professional connections and friendships. My goal as Section Chair this year is to provide those same opportunities and connections to you as members of the section.

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Kernodle-Hodges Receives the Paralegal Division’s Endorsement for the NCSB Board of Paralegal Certification

By Shawana Almendarez

NCBA Paralegal Division Special Nomination Committee

The Notification

On June 23, 2021, the North Carolina State Bar Board of Paralegal Certification (hereinafter “Board”) notified the Paralegal Division (hereinafter “division”) of a call for nominations pursuant to 27 N.C.A.C. Chapter 1G – Section .0105 to fill an upcoming vacancy on the Board.

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Statutes of Collections for Federal and North Carolina Taxes

By John G. Hodnette

For administrative convenience, federal and North Carolina law both provide that after a specific period of time, uncollected taxes are written off and released. This provides some relief for taxpayers who owe taxes for years long past as well as preventing tax agencies from fruitlessly pursuing old and cold liabilities.

Section 6502 provides the federal collection time limit, stating the collection statute expiration date (“CSED”) is 10 years after the assessment of the tax. There are certain events that extend the date as provided in Section 6503, including the taxpayer’s bankruptcy, spending time outside the United States, and filing a collection due process appeals hearing request. Before the expiration of the CSED, the IRS can seek to extend the 10-year period. However, it rarely does that.

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NCBA YLD’s Lunch and Learn Series Wins ABA Award of Achievement

By Lisa Arthur

On Tuesday, August 3, 2021, the NCBA YLD accepted the ABA Award of Achievement in the “Single Project: Service to the Bar” category. This award continues the NCBA YLD’s winning streak in taking home an ABA Award of Achievement every year, and we are grateful for this honor.

The Lunch and Learn Series is the brainchild of our fearless Division Director, Sheila Spence, who crafted the project in response to requests from young lawyers about potential career paths in the legal profession. Sheila created four virtual panels held during the lunch hour on the following topics: sports and entertainment law, going in house, working in nonprofits, and working in BigLaw.

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North Carolina Statutory Changes

By Anthony D. Nicholson

For Elder & Special Needs Law attorneys, there are some significant new North Carolina statutory changes we need to be aware of. Would you like to file all your probate, guardianship and other court filings online? I hope so. Soon you will be required to do so. Tired of going through the full guardianship process for a single transaction and then undoing the guardianship when the transaction is completed? There is a new fix for that. The basics are below. For a more detailed description of the statutory changes, see the Legislative Update section of the manuscript for the 2021 Annual Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Program.

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Where Am I and Where Am I Going?

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The NCBA Professional Vitality Committee creates sourced articles centered on reducing inherent stress and enhancing vitality in the lives of legal professionals and offers those resources as a benefit for members of the North Carolina Bar Association.

By Celia Pistolis

I was shocked to learn that I am a “senior lawyer.” Although I am not quite certain who has the audacity to make this determination, I think it means that I can now give advice to my younger colleagues.

But before you finish your predictable eye roll, let me say that this article is not about giving you advice. I am sure you hear enough advice from all sorts of people: your spouse, your significant other, your best friends, your colleagues, your mentor, your siblings, your parents, your hairstylist/barber, your mechanic, and even strangers.

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A Note To My Younger Self

The NCBA Professional Vitality Committee creates sourced articles centered on reducing inherent stress and enhancing vitality in the lives of legal professionals and offers those resources as a benefit for members of the North Carolina Bar Association.

By Coleman Cowan

Life is a journey. We all learn from our experiences. And if we’re paying attention, we become better people and lawyers not only from our successes but also from our failures. When I first started practicing, I made an effort to soak up as much knowledge and insight as I could from older, more experienced lawyers. Now that I’m one of them, I’ve taken on mentoring roles to help young lawyers just beginning to practice. If I’m honest, more time has passed than I would like to admit, but I still remember what it was like to be young, inexperienced, and fighting for my place at the table.

What appears below is a note to my younger self, with a bit of knowledge and experience I gained since I started practicing law more than 25 years ago. The idea was to help young lawyers – and maybe some not so young – learn from the experience of others, and perhaps come to terms a bit with the stress and pressure of being a new lawyer finding your way in an adversarial profession, whether in a transactional or a litigation practice.

A complete list of guidance would be endless, and there are likely as many good pieces of advice as there are practicing lawyers in the state. What appears below is in part unique to my experience, but also broad enough that others might benefit.

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Greetings from the New Section Chair

By Nahale Freeland Kalfas

Greetings Administrative Law Section Members –

It is my honor to serve this year as chair of the Administrative Law Section that has provided me with collegiality and useful information throughout the years. There is no doubt that this coming year will continue to be an opportunity to further refine our ability to counsel creatively, develop new skills, and pivot for our clients in challenging times. It is my hope that our section will continue its robust level of discussion and content with committee reports, discussion boards, blog posts and CLEs. I also hope that we can reach out to our colleagues newer to practice to provide both formal and informal mentorship opportunities, learning as much from them as we teach.

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Tax Advantages of S Corporations

By John G. Hodnette

Limited liability companies can elect to be taxed under federal and state law in a number of different ways. One popular choice for small business owners is for an LLC to elect to be an S corporation.

The primary tax advantage of operating as an S corporation is minimizing self-employment taxes. When operating as a sole proprietorship (whether through a disregarded LLC or not), an individual’s profits are subject to a 15.3% self-employment tax in addition to the individual income tax. The same is true for wages paid to employees of the S corporation (although in that case 7.65% is paid by the employee while the other 7.65% is paid by the S corporation itself). The IRS requires owners of an S corporation to pay themselves a reasonable salary, and not doing so (or paying too small of a salary) is the subject of many employment division audits of S corporations. However, S corporations are not required to pay out all of their profits as salaries to their employees. Rather, the IRS (in publications such as FS-2008-25) requires only that the salary be reasonable.

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Isolation

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The NCBA Professional Vitality Committee creates sourced articles centered on reducing inherent stress and enhancing vitality in the lives of legal professionals and offers those resources as a benefit for members of the North Carolina Bar Association.

By Michele Morris

In the morning, immediately upon waking, my mind screaming at me: “Get up. Get out of bed. You can do it. You can do this. Get up.” Not exactly high motivation. But I would indeed get up and sit in front of my computer, alone, in my apartment, drinking my first cup of coffee. I still had a small number of paying clients and an appellate brief due date looming. Even though writing it felt like pushing a rock up Mount Everest, I wrote.

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