Harvey was a character. He wore only Pointer brand overalls, had less than a high school education and lived in a double-wide mobile home near the railroad with a wonderful wife and two good children — and he was an exceptional businessman, accumulating a small fortune. He owned grain sidings along railroads around eastern North Carolina where he bought low and sold high. As a beginning solo lawyer, I would see him at farm auctions, standing at the back of the crowd, and when the auctioneer called out, “Bids all in?” he would wave with a limp finger and proceed to bid in the property. He was a legend.

Harvey had a stroke one day which disabled him. A guardianship was initiated. Bob Spence Sr., a contemporary of my father, was counsel to the guardian. Because Harvey was leveraged and the bank was somewhat uneasy, the guardian proposed to liquidate some of the properties and pay down the ward’s debt.

I had been practicing law solo for about two years in the office of my father, also a sole practitioner, who had died my first year in law school. In the first calendar year of my practice, I took in less than $3,800 gross money. My mother was my unpaid secretary; I was paying bills from savings left from my stint in the Navy. Times were tough.

Out of the blue, Bob came by my office one afternoon to ask whether I would do the legal work for this guardianship — he would call the shots and deal with the family, I would do all of the legal work, and we would split the fees and commissions. He would be my mentor. Had it not been for this opportunity, the appearance of this mentor in the person of a man I had known as a prominent lawyer since I was ten years old, my nascent law practice would likely have died aborning. Bob believed in me. We made a successful team, even arguing and winning a case before the Fourth Circuit in Richmond. The bank got paid, Harvey’s family managed the balance of his properties for financial security and I got a large dose of confidence — and my practice turned the corner financially.

As a mentor, one can create confidence in a younger lawyer that will last a lifetime. If you have enjoyed some success in the legal profession, likely a large part of that success is traceable to a kind word, an encouraging gesture or a case referral from a more established colleague who believed in you. Are you now paying that kindness forward? It is important that you do so: every younger lawyer needs a mentor. Without a mentor one might survive and ultimately with much effort achieve success or even greatness; with a mentor, that young lawyer is much more likely to flourish faster, grow quicker professionally, and sooner be in a position to “pay it forward.” The circle will be unbroken. This is how the profession improves. One person can make a difference. Some would say it takes a village; I would say it takes just one — just you — and that one will then multiply exponentially.

I grew up in what had been a tenant house on the on the western end of a plantation, divided in generations past, at the end of a mile-long dirt road, this part purchased by my grandfather in 1943 and given to my father after the War. We had no indoor plumbing until I was seven years old; I had a driver’s license before we had a telephone. I rode the school bus and endured all the bullying you can imagine would come to a small boy just over five feet tall and weighing about 105 pounds at age 16. I hated high school. I missed three to six weeks each year: two weeks to harvest hay in the fall, and three or more weeks to plant corn and soybeans in the spring. I graduated near the top of the bottom half of the class. I had no mentor.

My first semester in college was remarkable in that I had just over a 2.0 grade point average. I learned that I had an “advisor,” and the bulletin encouraged students to schedule a visit, which I did. As I sat down, he pulled up my high school transcript and reviewed my lamentable performance the previous semester. Without any pleasantries or other introduction, he asserted with that confidence which only such a functionary can exude that I would flunk out before sophomore year and recommended that I see the Marine Corps recruiter. Without a word, I stood up, turned around and left, leaving the door ajar. I never went back.

I did make it to sophomore year, taught myself how to study, made top grades, graduated and left for the United States Navy with an ROTC commission. If one works hard in the Navy, he will find a mentor, or two. The Navy promotes this effort: if those under your supervision do well, get good reports and promotions, then you will do well. Being a leader by being a mentor is the hallmark of a good officer. I did work hard. I had good mentors. But the Vietnam War ended, and I left for law school.

After my father died at the end of my second semester at law school, I was fortunate to find a splendid mentor, a professor who gave me credit in a footnote for helping with his law review article. He found me employment as his assistant, got me a clerkship with the chief judge of the Fourth Circuit — which I declined so I could open my father’s vacant office in the small town near the farm where I grew up. Sometimes a mentee, like a mule, will jump the traces and take off across the field.

A young general practitioner has special challenges, not the least of which is dealing with the excessively aggressive tactics of older and more experienced opposing trial counsel. After seven years, my patience snapped when, in a hotly contested divorce proceeding, the opposing party cleaned out the marital residence while my client was at church — on the day before my motion to enjoin her from coming near the premises was to be heard. The very next day I started collecting applications to post-graduate programs. I soon left the practice in charge of the partners I had added in the intervening years and went to post-graduate school to get an LL.M. in taxation. The following year I was invited to speak on a tax topic at the annual Bar Section meeting, and was later invited, again, for the following year. After my presentation, the second year, as I walked down the aisle of the auditorium, a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into an empty seat. It was Jeff Batts of Rocky Mount, known to me only by reputation as one of the leading tax lawyers in the state. “You did a good job, son,” he said — music to my ears. “I am going to nominate you to be a Fellow in the American College of Probate Counsel.” He did so. My mentor.

That one vote of confidence, followed up by his nomination and my acceptance as a Fellow, was (other than my wife’s “yes” to my proposal) the defining moment in my life, personally and professionally. It was my admission to the “tribe” and an admonition to me to promote the good of the tribe, to work hard with the certain confidence that my work would count: I went on to write well over one hundred CLE manuscripts, law review and law journal articles, and to speak on tax topics across the country.

I hope I have paid it forward. Certainly I have tried, especially with the younger lawyers and the staff in my firm. A good word, a kind word, an encouraging word is as much the mark of the wisdom of the speaker as it is music to the ears of the listener, a call to greater effort, higher achievement. That vote of confidence is the fertilizer on a young rose; it does not produce the bloom but makes it larger, more beautiful, and longer lasting. Such words have made all the difference to me in the many stages of my professional life.

You should do it — one day some lawyer now grown old and gray will, like me, count you among those who made a difference: for me, Robert A. Spence Sr., Professor Leon H. Corbett Jr. and Jefferson D. Batts.

James W. Narron is Senior Counsel (Retired) with Narron Wenzel, P.A., with offices in Smithfield, Raleigh and Benson.

June 30, 2026/by Business