Government & Public Sector Section 20th Anniversary: Part 1
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.
The section now has more than 540 members from all facets of government practice and located all over the state. The past chairs represent a cross-section of that membership – local government county attorneys (Mark Payne, Aimee Scotton, Jennifer Jones, Matt Mason) and city/town attorneys (Linda Miles, Ralph Karpinos, Jeff Sugg, John Schifano, Nicolette Fulton), private practitioners representing local governments (Jim Cauley, Jeff Gray, Mike Thelen), state government attorneys (Ann Wall, David Kirkman, Lucy Austin), federal attorneys (Gill Beck), and even a federal judge (Frank Whitney). And some members have had multiple roles, such as Dan McLawhorn – the State Attorney General’s Office to General Counsel to a state agency to the Raleigh City Attorney’s Office, while mostly specializing in environmental law – and Nicolette Fulton – Raleigh City Attorney’s Office to the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. I have run the gamut of government and public sector careers working in state and federal agencies and county and municipal law offices. I am privileged to have had the opportunity to interview 17 past chairs of the section. Part 1 will introduce you to the chairs, some of their NCBA accomplishments, and what they remember most about their time as chair.
The full list of the past chairs of the GPS Section:
2002-2003 Daniel F. McLawhorn (2006 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence, 2020 Administrative Law Section Award of Excellence)
2003-2004 Linda A. Miles
2004-2005 Gill P. Beck (2005 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence)
2005-2006 Jeff Gray (2009 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence)
2006-2007 Ralph Karpinos
2007-2008 Ann B. Wall (2007 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence, 2023 Administrative Law Section Award of Excellence)
2008-2009 J. Mark Payne
2009-2010 David N. Kirkman
2010-2011 James P. Cauley III
2011-2012 Jeffrey C. Sugg
2012-2013 Christine Simpson (2019 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence)
2013-2014 Hunt Choi
2014-2015 Judge Frank D. Whitney (2017 Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence)
2015-2016 Ward A. Zimmerman
2016-2017 John P. Schifano
2017-2018 Nicolette Fulton
2018-2019 Aimee Scotton
2019-2020 Michael Thelen
2020-2021 Jennifer Jones
2021-2022 Matthew Mason
2022-2023 Lucy Austin
Past Chairs’ Memories of Their Time in Leadership
Dan McLawhorn
I was Chair for the first year of the section. It was a time of organization and the presentation of CLE programs. I recall the Section Council and officers being extremely supportive, as was the NCBA staff.
Gill Beck
Opportunity to learn about the great work of city, county, and state attorneys.
Ralph Karpinos
I am so pleased to have helped recruit Grainger Barrett to the Section Council. I first met Grainger about 1980 and had always been impressed by his intellect and energy. Naming the section’s annual award in his honor was a way to continue to honor him as well as to honor those attorneys who so deservingly receive the award each year.
Ann Wall
What stands out is that while a lot of work, serving as Chair was a joy. You could not wish for a better group of people to work with on the Council and in the section. Ideas were freely shared and respected and even laughter were ever-present (even when we got on each other’s nerves). The section tried to accomplish a lot that year and made progress on our goals. We worked with the Litigation Section on proposed eDiscovery changes to the Rules, in an effort to ease the burden of the proposed changes on governments and their attorneys. We tried to get more State government members through the positional memberships established by the NCBA in 2007. Those positional memberships for the first time enabled State agencies to legally pay for memberships for their attorneys and was a great victory for the section under my predecessor. It took years to get the NCBA to understand that, unlike local governments, State agencies could not legally pay for memberships. Once we got the NCBA to finally approve positional memberships, then in my year as Chair, we tried to recruit agencies to use the new option. The section approved a proposal for a discounted positional membership to try to entice agencies to pay for them. Due to internal NCBA issues, we were unable to move forward with the discount. Then the economy began to collapse, so no state agencies could afford it and our only positional members came from the university system. I established what I hoped would be an annual meeting report from the chair to all section members, summarizing the section’s year. We presented two excellent CLEs and published four newsletters – a strong record for a new section, particularly since some long-established sections only published one or two newsletters that year. Section members participated in the 4ALL NCBA pro bono program and also served as judges for the “We the People” student competition. We also began working on the Department of Justice to clarify its position regarding its attorneys engaging in pro bono work.
Mark Payne
Getting to know good and interesting people.
David Kirkman
Grainger Barrett died somewhere around my first week as chair. It was pretty shocking. Every good organization has individuals who are pillars of that organization, and Grainger was certainly one of ours. Getting the Section to name the annual award after him and then bestowing it upon him posthumously was about as difficult as slicing butter with a hot knife. Being able to present it to his wife at the annual meeting was the most pleasurable moment of my tenure as chair.
Jim Cauley
I most remember reaching out to others to lobby them to consider joining the section or serving in a leadership role. I met some very bright and talented individuals in the process whose paths I still cross in my practice.
Jeff Sugg
The interaction with the federal practitioners was tremendously helpful when I encountered my first case with the city in federal district court. When you work in a legal department staffed by one attorney, you relish access to other viewpoints and opinions. Every section event that I have attended has led me to think about asking a question a different way or applying my analysis of a problem with an eye toward variables that I had not contemplated prior to engaging with the section’s pool of talented legal professionals.
Frank Whitney
The single biggest challenge was NCBA membership dues, and the impact dues had on recruiting new members. Total NCBA membership dues (including NCBA dues and Committee/Section) were relatively high, at least for generally under-paid public sector attorneys, impacting our ability to recruit other public sector attorneys.
John Schifano
Wrestling with other sections of the NCBA over 160D and being told to play nice.
Nicolette Fulton
Working to establish connections with government and public sector attorneys across the state and practice areas.
Aimee Scotton
Everyone works hard to make the chair look good – especially the folks at the Bar Association.
Mike Thelen
I served during COVID. And by “during COVID,” I mean that I was chair in the normal times of February 2020 and I was still chair the not-so-normal times of “until June 2020.” Despite that, though, my truly fond memory is that engagement didn’t stop, which is a testament to the quality of membership, staff, and leadership with which the GPS section is blessed.
Jennifer Jones
Unfortunately, it was one of the COVID years! Everything was virtual and all plans had to be adjusted!
In Part 2, the 17 past chairs interviewed answer the following 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?
Terri Jones is the Town Attorney for the Town of Garner and currently the Vice-Chair of the GPS Section Council and credits her “sister-in-spirit” and past Chair Jennifer Jones for convincing her to serve on the GPS Section Council and become an officer.