Pro Bono Made Easy!

Nancy, a white woman with white hair, wears a pale grey blouse with cut out sleeves and pink and white embroidery.By Nancy Black Norelli 

Senior Lawyers have several options for pro bono work in North Carolina. Share your knowledge and experience while serving your community in one of the opportunities listed below.

Pro Bono Go

North Carolina’s civil justice community has launched Pro Bono Go, a statewide platform for legal professionals seeking pro bono service that makes a meaningful difference in the lives of North Carolinians in need.

Created by the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center (NCPBRC) in partnership with Charlotte Center for Legal AdvocacyLegal Aid of North Carolina, and Pisgah Legal Services, Pro Bono Go is a new online clearinghouse of pro bono opportunities provided by the state’s leading civil legal aid and public-interest legal organizations.

Pro Bono Go allows a Senior Lawyer to visit one website to find pro bono opportunities from the state’s leading civil justice organizations. You can search and filter opportunities by keyword, location, practice area, type, and sponsor organization. This is a great site to find a pro bono opportunity that will work for you!

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Nominate a Deserving Colleague for the Legal Practice Hall of Fame

Dan, a white man with white hair, wears a white shirt, maroon tie and black jacket.By Dan Hartzog

On behalf of the Selection Committee, I am reaching out to further encourage you to nominate a deserving lawyer for induction into the NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame. The nominations remain open until March 17, 2023.

I hope that you reviewed the comments included in a blog post from Ed Gaskins, encouraging members of the NCBA to nominate lawyers for induction into the Legal Practice Hall of Fame and giving special emphasis to the need for diversity. Those of us who are involved in this process fully support that emphasis. Ed’s blog was followed up by an excellent NC Lawyer magazine interview in which Judge Richard Doughton, the current Chair of the Senior Lawyers Division, and Judge Robert C. Hunter, the chair-elect of the SLD, seek more engagement for this section. They specifically reference the Hall of Fame and the banquet that will once again be held to allow the inductees and sponsors to share remarks. The reason that these fine members have spoken up about this topic is that they have personally observed how special an event this really is – not only for the inductees and sponsors, but for everyone who attends the banquets.

The Hall of Fame is designed to recognize a lifetime of exemplary service, high ethical and professional standards as a lawyer, and serving as a role model for all lawyers in North Carolina. I am sure that nearly all of you know lawyers who meet these criteria. As I have said before, one thing I can promise you is that it will mean more than you can know to that person – and to their family, friends, and colleagues.

Here are the official qualifications: a lawyer must have engaged in the practice of law for at least 30 years, primarily in North Carolina, and they must be a member in good standing of the North Carolina State Bar and the North Carolina Bar Association. The person must be living at the time of their nomination. They must have shown the highest standards of ethics and professional competency. And they must have given a high level of service to the bar and their communities.

Since it was founded in 1989, a total of 178 lawyers have been selected. These lawyers practice across the state, and since a change in name and scope in 2019 to include not only general practice lawyers but also lawyers with more focused practices, in a wide variety of practice areas.

Nominate an attorney for this award today.

Thanks for your time and attention. We look forward to hearing from you.

Nominations Open for the Legal Practice Hall of Fame

Ed, a white man with white hair and glasses, wears a white shirt and yellow tie.By E. D. Gaskins Jr.

For several years, I have served on the NCBA Law Practice Hall of Fame Selection Committee. It has been a privilege to do so, as the Committee reviews the nominating materials of some of the most outstanding attorneys in our state. It is inspiring to do so!

The primary purpose of this blog post is to urge you to nominate lawyers whom you admire and who have been exemplary practitioners and community leaders, displaying extraordinary standards of professionalism. But as part of that, I urge you to think comprehensively, to help us increase the depth of our nomination process and the breadth of our Hall of Fame.

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Nominate a Deserving Colleague for the Legal Practice Hall of Fame Award!

By Dan Hartzog

You may have seen that nominations for the North Carolina Bar Association’s Legal Practice Hall of Fame are now open and are set to close on March 25, 2022. All of you are busy and have other things to do, but I want to encourage you take a little time to consider this opportunity to nominate a lawyer who meets the criteria for this honor. One thing I can promise you is that it will mean more than you can know to that person – and to his or her family, friends, and colleagues.

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Induction of Glenn E. Ketner Jr. into the 2020 NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame

By his nominator and son, Glenn “Bo” E. Ketner III

Glenn has had an extraordinary legal career of almost 58 years, nearly all of it in Salisbury, and he maintains a thriving practice that encompasses estate planning, real estate and land use/zoning, among other areas. He is well known to clients and his peers in Rowan County and across the state as an expert in these practices, and as someone who can solve difficult problems.

Susan and Glenn E. Ketner Jr.

Beyond his continuing practice, my father has made an extraordinary number of contributions of his apparently boundless energy, his expertise and his fine judgment – three essential qualities of a great lawyer – to the legal profession and to the broader community in Salisbury and North Carolina. A list of these efforts (and the various awards deriving from all of his service) would take too long to catalog, but it includes leadership service to the North Carolina Bar Association, service to educational institutions local and global in reach, and devoted service to his hometown of Salisbury.

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The SLD Has Met!

By Leon Corbett

The Senior Lawyers Division had its Spring Meeting on April 15; once again on Zoom, with the Chair, Justice Rhoda Billings, presiding. The meeting was preceded by a meeting of the Council on April 13, and the Bar Association’s CLE program “Planning for Success: Succession Planning and Business Continuity for All Stages of Your Legal Career” intervened on April 14. Attendance at the Spring Meeting was nearly 50 members. Business included the election of the Chair-Elect, Judge Richard Doughton; Secretary, Ed Gaskins; Treasurer, Hank Van Hoy; Council Member, Lynn Gullick; Council Member, Susan Olive; Council Member, Barbara Morgenstern; and Council Member, Elizabeth Quick.

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Induction of Robert C. Hunter into the NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame

By Henry P. Van Hoy, II

Robert C. Hunter was among a distinguished group of inductees into the North Carolina Bar Association Legal Practice Hall of Fame, class of 2020. I was pleased to nominate Judge Hunter and want readers to know some of the reasons the selection committee chose Bob for induction.

Bob has been married to his lovely wife, Nancy, for 49 years. They have two children and a slew of grandchildren. Having a loving and supportive family is a predicate to success and happiness. A long marriage indicates loving commitment, service, sublimation of self, devotion, deep and abiding values, depth of character, and the ability to work through and solve problems, all characteristics Bob possesses in spades. These qualities are reflected in Bob’s dedication to the law and to his efforts to make his community, the state, the judiciary, and the legal profession better. His daughter, Claire, is a lawyer following in her dad’s footsteps. I submit that Claire chose to become a lawyer because she deemed her Dad’s career is worthy of following, high praise. Read more

Five New Hall of Fame Members Honored in Virtual Induction Ceremony

E.D. Gaskins, Chair
Hall of Fame Nominating Committee

The fall meeting of the Senior Lawyers Division, which took place on October 2, 2020, was highlighted by the induction of five new members into the NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame: Marshall Gallop Jr. of Rocky Mount, Judge Robert C. Hunter of Marion, Glenn Ketner Jr. of Salisbury, Pender McElroy of Charlotte, and Kenneth Moser of Winston-Salem. Both the inductees and their nominators made remarks.

This was the first (and, I hope, the last) virtual induction ceremony. This is the 32nd class of honorees since the inception of this recognition of a lifetime of exceptional practice and service to the profession and to the communities in which these honorees have practiced. The Selection Committee was pleased to have had a large number of well-qualified candidates from which to choose. This is the second year since the practice qualification for membership in the Hall of Fame changed from general practice to legal practice, thus increasing the number of potential nominees.

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2020 – End of Calendar Year Gift Ideas

By Tom Hull

Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD) and Your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Accounts

Thanks to changes in the 2018 tax law, many of us are able to reap the benefits of an opportunity to receive a charitable deduction and take the full standard deduction at the same time. As you have heard, the SECURE Act enacted in late December 2019 raised the minimum age from 70.5 (technically April 1 of the year following the year a person attains the age of 70.5) to 72 years effective January 1, 2020, for required minimum distributions from IRAs and other applicable accounts. You can now wait until the age of 72 for the first RMD unless you were already required to take RMDs in 2019. Although the CARES Act waives required minimum distributions (RMD’s) for calendar year 2020, would you please consider the QCD option?

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Join Us Via Zoom on Friday, Oct. 2, For Our Fall Meeting

By Rhoda Billings

Dear Senior Lawyers,

Although it’s not the same as sharing a drink and swapping stories in person, I hope you are planning to join us on Friday, October 2, at 9:00 a.m. via zoom for our fall meeting. We will induct five outstanding lawyers into the Legal Practice Hall of Fame. Then, Bar Center staff will give us a brief tutorial on how to navigate the new NCBA website, including how to take advantage of the SLD blog.

We look forward to seeing you, even if it is only on a computer screen.

Rhoda Billings
SLD Chair