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Student Composer Pens an Ode to NCBA’s Law Day

By Russell Rawlings

When the 60th anniversary of Law Day was observed last month, Travis Ramsey took it upon himself to do

Travis Ramsey plans to minor in music at N.C. State University while seeking a major in material science:
‘I want to create something that has not been created.’

something special.

Ramsey is not a member of the Young Lawyers Division, which annually organizes these festivities, or the

North Carolina Bar Association. Nor is he a member of the N.C. Bar Center staff.

Ramsey is a senior in high school – for a few more days – and a member of the Green Hope High School Chamber Orchestra, which annually performs at Law Day. In advance of this year’s performance, he composed special music under the title of Nos Lege Unimur.

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Attorney-Rapper Lex-Jordan Ibegbu Relies On Both Rhyme and Reason

By Amber Nimocks

When summoning the confidence to impress a judge or woo a jury, young attorney Lex-Jordan Ibegbu relies on his years as a rapper growing up in Southeast Raleigh, where he spent much of his time writing rhymes and speaking his truth to crowds big and small.

“Rapping has given me a certain level of comfort when speaking to people,” he says. “MC means ‘Move the Crowd.’ When you are in court, it is similar to a stage, your crowd is the judge or the jury.”

A lifelong North Carolinian, Ibegbu, 27, attended Cary Academy and UNC-Chapel Hill before he headed south for a few years to earn his law degree at the University Of Miami School of Law. He returned home to Southeast Raleigh to begin his practice a year and a half ago, focusing on myriad areas including criminal defense, traffic court, business law, family law, entertainment, sports and government. Growing up in Southeast Raleigh shaped him, Ibegbu says.

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Talking To All Generations: Manage Your Online Reputation

By Matt Cordell

When I have the opportunity to give advice to law students and young lawyers, one of the things I try to impress upon them is the importance of their reputations, including their “online reputations.”

Usually the comment is quickly met with a knowing nod. Everyone seems to know that their reputation is important. However, having witnessed many lawyers of all ages impair their professional reputations online, I have begun to realize that many of us fail to recognize some aspects of maintaining our online reputations, and I have begun to be much more specific in my advice to younger lawyers.

Older lawyers, I have observed, often seem to understand some of the things that younger lawyers may miss, but older lawyers can have their own blind spots in this area. In this short piece, I would like to describe a few observations about lawyers’ online reputations and suggest that young lawyers and older
lawyers can learn much from one another regarding this topic. (There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to my generational generalizations.)

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Millennial Lawyers Are Different, Except When They Are Just Like Everyone Else

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Mathew CordellBy Matt Cordell

Most demographic experts define the “millennial” generation as those born in or after 1981. The Young Lawyers Division of the NCBA comprises law students, lawyers 36 years old or younger, and lawyers of any age in their first three years of practice.

This means that the Young Lawyers Division is now almost entirely composed of millennials.

          How are millennials supposed to collaborate in the workplace with their older colleagues who presumably are so fundamentally different? At the 2016 NCBA Mentoring Conference earlier this year, the Young Lawyers Division and the Senior Lawyers Division came together to explore this question.

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Young Lawyers Are Doing Good, But Not Always Doing Well

By Matt Cordell

The Young Lawyers Division recently held its 62nd Annual Meeting in connection with the NCBA Annual Meeting in Charlotte. As the ceremonial gavel was passed across the room from our former YLD chairs, including past NCBA presidents, our current president, and our president-elect, I thought about how the YLD has truly been a training ground for leaders of our profession and our state.

I then looked around the room at the remarkable young lawyers present. What an honor it is to serve alongside such an incredible group of people. The young lawyers who make up the YLD’s leadership team truly represent the best of our profession. They are smart, hardworking, selfless people who give their precious time and abundant talents, and together they are leading our more than 6,400 YLD members to achieve some remarkable things.

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