PROTECTION ZONE: Brooks Pierce and other law firms step forward as demand for white-collar defense blossoms.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: NCTREND: Legal Affairs

North Carolina's rising profile as a business center in recent decades has coincided with an increased number of legal controversies involving corporations and senior executives.

Meanwhile, federal law policing all sorts of business activities has expanded significantly in recent decades, creating greater demand for lawyers required to provide defense for businesspeople and other "white-collar" clients facing investigations by the Department of Justice along with myriad federal agencies.

Consider the Duke Energy coal-ash spills prompted grand jury subpoenas of unnamed utility company employees. The queries created under-the-radar work for many North Carolina lawyers. No employees were charged, though the company paid fines after negotiations with the government.

"There definitely is a greater interest in [white-collar] cases, and there's been an uptick in prosecutions," says Scott Harkey, a Winston-Salem lawyer who specializes in the field. He started his own firm last year after eight years at the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. He was a senior financial-crimes prosecutor who represented the state in dozens of major fraud cases.

The growth of white-collar defense work is an irony, says a veteran defense attorney in Charlotte, who asked to remain anonymous because of the confidentiality of his work. There was a time, not too long ago, when the state's major law firms looked disapprovingly at lawyers who specialized in defending corporate executives and others accused of various misdeeds, he says.

Forward to 2022, and many of the biggest, most highly regarded Tar Heel law firms have tapped into white-collar defense practice. An early adopter was Greensboro's Brooks Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard law firm, which has made it a key emphasis, says Kearns Davis, who has worked there for more than 20 years over two stints.

Davis earned a bachelor's at Davidson College, a master's at Duke University and a UNC Chapel Hill law degree, then clerked with U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sam Ervin III. He joined the firm in 1996 when a big chunk of its clientele was traditional textile, furniture and other manufacturers. "That was the economic base of Greensboro," he recalls. Now, he says, the region's economy is poised to accelerate with expected expansions by Toyota Motor and Boom Supersonic.

Davis left the firm in 2003 to join the U.S. Attorney's office four blocks down the street in downtown Greensboro. It was a difficult decision, he...