This column is adapted from 26th Judicial District Bar President Lee Robertson’s speech delivered at the May 21, 2025, 26th JD Bar Annual Meeting.

I am honored to speak to you today as the second president of the 26th Judicial Bar. It seems that I have become the John Adams of the 26th Judicial District.

And speaking of Presidents, I would like to thank Thomas Powers for his service, both as the first president of the 26th Judicial Bar and as a past president of the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation. Under Thomas’ leadership, the Foundation sold, then sold again, the Mecklenburg County Bar building and moved to its new offices. And, under Thomas’ leadership, for the first time in more than 100 years, we had both a voluntary and mandatory bar. If I am the 26th’s John Adams, then he is certainly its George Washington. Thank you, Thomas, for all you did for the Mecklenburg County Bar, the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation, and the 26th Judicial District Bar.

Thank you to Judge Aretha Blake for taking the time to deliver the Oaths of office to us today. We are very fortunate in Mecklenburg County that our judiciary is intricately involved with the life of the Bar. When I was told to ask a judge to deliver the oath, I immediately thought of Judge Blake, who I have known to be a dedicated servant of this Bar. She is also a family court judge, and I don’t go to family court, and therefore, as far as I know, has no reason to be annoyed with me. Yet. And even though I find that most judges are more often annoyed with me than not, I am proud that the members of our judiciary, without exception, not only recognize the importance of the work the Bar does in Mecklenburg County—they are also willing to do that work, too.

Thank you to Leah Campbell and Meghan Tinkham and all of the Bar staff for their professional guidance and support to the 26th Judicial Bar, the Mecklenburg Bar Association, and the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation. It is easy to volunteer with a staff like we have, and we are all very grateful. And of course, thank you to those of you who are in attendance today.

The last time I addressed the Bar was the Bar Leadership Dinner several years ago. I am pleased to say that it brought down the house. Literally. There were tornadoes. I have not been permitted to speak since. So, in light of that, I will do my best to speak quickly so that we can move on to better things. And, so that unlike the judges in Mecklenburg County, you won’t be annoyed with me.

For almost 15 years, I have had the opportunity to volunteer, in some capacity, with the Mecklenburg County Bar, the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation, and now, the 26th Judicial District and the Mecklenburg Bar Association. My involvement began the first year I was licensed when I signed up to participate in the Mecklenburg Bar’s Mentorship Program. I was much less interested in having a mentor, and much more interested in getting to know other lawyers in Mecklenburg County. After all, my dad had been a lawyer in Mecklenburg County for a number of years, and by that point, I’d had all the mentoring I could handle working for him in his law firm. But as luck would have it, I was assigned Pender McElroy, who was then the managing partner of James, McElroy & Diehl, a prominent homegrown law firm. Himself a former Bar president and very respected  lawyer throughout Mecklenburg County, we had our first lunch at a long-closed Italian restaurant. It was in that first lunch that Pender encouraged me to volunteer with the Bar. Taking his advice, I am so glad that I did. I am also pleased that even now, 15 years later, lunches with Pender regularly take up space on my calendar.

I am also very grateful for all the lessons I learned from my father, who built a career and a law firm (the same law firm that I now run). There is no doubt I am only here today because of the lessons he taught me very early in my career, and the lessons he still teaches me, 15 years later.

You are here today, so I have to believe that you also understand the importance of becoming involved with the Bar. There are of course the professional reasons: the continuing education and the opportunity to network. I often speak to young lawyers about how to build their legal practices, and the best advice any lawyer can give is to meet other lawyers. Other lawyers, after all, are a lawyer’s best source of referrals. But far more important than the networking events and the CLE credit are the relationships that we build with one another. There are no easy days as a lawyer (and I will submit that if you have an easy day as a lawyer, it’s only the calm before the storm). I heard Judge Albert Diaz of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and himself a very active member of this Bar, once say that the difference between being a lawyer and being a surgeon is that when you’re a  surgeon, they don’t send another surgeon into the operating room to try and kill your patient.

In an adversarial system, it is easy for us to become adversarial with one another. John Grisham writes that “To be a real lawyer, first you grow a thick skin, and second you tell everybody but your clients to go to hell.” Maybe that’s true. But I submit that your clients aren’t the only people in the courtroom or the boardroom whose opinion matters.

As a part of my work with the 26th Judicial District Bar, I have also had the good fortune to serve as a member of the Grievance Committee. The Grievance Committee, of course, is charged with investigating those lawyers who may have violated their duties to their clients or to each other. Although there are certainly those lawyers for whom the Grievance Committee’s work matters, I am proud that the vast majority of those cases, at least in my experience, were simple misunderstandings between clients and their lawyers.

It is in that light that I am proud to lead the 26th Judicial District Bar, a body of some 6,500 lawyers, almost all of whom are committed to the service of their clients and the profession. And I encourage each of us, as we begin this new Bar year, to remember that, almost without exception, the people on the other side of the courtroom or the other side of the table in a boardroom, are also trying to do the best they can for their clients and to give grace when we can. I am hopeful that this year, the 26th Judicial District Bar can be a resource to you as you work to build your professional community.

I look forward to an exciting year serving the people of Mecklenburg County with you.