The law firm of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP is pleased to announce that Catharine B. Arrowood and Robert W. Spearman have been appointed to the North Carolina State Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers (“College”). The State Committees of the College initiate and consider nominations of attorneys for membership in the organization. Ms. Arrowood has also been appointed to serve on the International Committee, which states its mission as to “advance the rule of law abroad by the encouragement of independent advocacy particularly in those nations recently emerging from despotic pasts.”
The College, created in 1950 to recognize excellence in trial lawyers, includes members from every segment of the civil and criminal trial bar of the United States and Canada. The purpose of the College, in addition to identifying and recognizing outstanding trial lawyers, is to improve the standards of trial practice, the administration of justice and the ethics of the profession. Invitation to membership is extended by the Board of Regents, the governing body of the College, after examination of the nominee’s experience, skill, ability and ethical standards.
Ms. Arrowood, a partner in Parker Poe’s Litigation Department, has thirty years of litigation and counseling experience with special emphasis on advising regulated businesses in the areas of technology, business tort, antitrust and internal corporate governance. She is a Neutral for the American Arbitration Association and the firm’s representative to the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution. She has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of alternative dispute resolution and business litigation and named to Business North Carolina magazine's "Legal Elite" in antitrust and litigation. Ms. Arrowood was a member of Parker Poe’s Management Committee from 1990 to 2001. She serves on the Law Board of Visitors at Wake Forest University, the College of Management Board at North Carolina State University and the Board of the North Carolina Symphony. She received her J.D., cum laude, in 1976 and her B.A., cum laude, in 1973 from Wake Forest University.
Mr. Spearman, Parker Poe’s Antitrust and Business Torts Practice Group Leader, has extensive experience in civil and commercial litigation. He has handled numerous complex commercial lawsuits for public companies in North Carolina federal courts, state courts and the United States Court of Appeals. He represented low wealth school districts in the Leandro litigation in which the North Carolina Supreme Court held that every child in the state has a right to a sound basic education. In recognition of his efforts for children, he was awarded the Razor Walker award in 2002 and given the North Carolina Justice Center’s Annual Defender of Justice Award in 2004. Mr. Spearman has also served as Chairman of the North Carolina Board of Elections and Wake County Democratic Party Chairman. He was recognized in The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of antitrust law, business litigation and intellectual property law, and among the “Legal Elite” by Business North Carolina magazine. Mr. Spearman received his LL.B. from Yale University in 1970, his M.A. with first class honors from Oxford University in 1967, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his A.B. with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1965. He served as law clerk for the Honorable Justice Hugo Black on the United States Supreme Court from 1970-1971. Mr. Spearman also recently completed a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the General Alumni Association at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP currently has more than 175 lawyers, with five offices in the Carolinas. Parker Poe has North Carolina offices in Charlotte and Raleigh and South Carolina offices in Charleston, Columbia and Spartanburg. The firm provides a complete range of legal services and has extensive experience in antitrust and business torts, banking and finance, bankruptcy, reorganization and creditors’ rights, commercial litigation, corporate and commercial law, employee benefits, employment, environmental, government, health care, international, mergers and acquisitions, public finance, real estate and commercial development, securities, tax and torts, trial and insurance. www.parkerpoe.com.