Miles Receives Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence
The NCBA Government & Public Sector Section presented the 2024 Grainger Barrett Award to Linda Avery Miles of Wilmington on June 6 during the section’s annual meeting at the N.C. Bar Center.
Honoring the Grainger Barrett Award winner, from left, Terri Ann Jones, section chair, presenter Dan McLawhorn, recipient Linda Avery Miles and nominator Nicolette Fulton.
Dan McLawhorn presented the award to Miles, with whom he shares the distinction of serving as the first two chairs of the section. Miles previously served as Greensboro’s city attorney and retired recently as attorney for the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA).
“It was the highest and most rewarding honor to be acknowledged by my peers in the section who I respect and consider the consummate lawyers,” Miles said. “Dan McLawhorn, Jeff Gray, Ann Wall and I were in the group of folks who started the section, with Dan and I being chairs the first two years.
“Over the years, I have been able to call on other members for advice and support in issues affecting local government. Without this section, I would not have had the opportunity to meet many of those who have given me advice and different perspectives on so many issues.”
Nicolette Fulton, who is also a former chair of the section, nominated Miles for the award and succeeded her as Authority Attorney.
“Mrs. Miles epitomizes the spirit of the Grainger Barrett Award,” Fulton stated in her nomination. “Her legal career in local government spanned nearly fifty years. She graduated as one of only eight women in the 1972 class of UNC Law School. Since, she has undertaken a career reflective of the quiet excellence demonstrated by the Award’s namesake.”
Miles joined the City of Greensboro staff in 1977 and served as city attorney from 1999-2007. She joined Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) as legal counsel upon its creation in 2009.
“Her impact on CFPUA as its primary legal counsel during its formative years was invaluable,” Fulton said. “She tirelessly worked to codify CFPUA’s ordinance, creating a cohesive document that is easily accessible to staff and customers and to ensure the fulfillment of all agreements for transfers from the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County, including CFPUA’s acquisition of the Porters Neck water system.”
Through her retirement in February of this year, Fulton continued, Miles served the Authority and its board tirelessly.
“She consistently advocated for fair and equitable treatment of all customers and employees,” Fulton said. “She served and guided almost every board and three executive director administrations in her 15 years of service, and CFPUA has greatly benefited from that guidance.”
Because of her leadership, Fulton added, the Authority has developed an enviable reputation at the state and national level.
“Most notably,” Fulton said, “Mrs. Miles’ knowledge of environmental regulations, North Carolina and federal law, and her extensive contacts within the legal community guided the Authority as it navigated and fulfilled an Environmental Protection Agency Consent Order relating to the contamination of the Cape Fear River with origins pre-dating CFPUA’s creation.”
Longtime colleague George House of Brooks Pierce echoed Fulton’s sentiments while providing insight on the recipient’s years in Greensboro. A pioneer in the field of environmental law, House previously served as chair of the NCBA’s Environment, Energy & Natural Resources Law Section.
“I met Linda Miles when I moved to Greensboro in 1976,” House stated. “She had accepted a position as Assistant City Attorney for the City of Greensboro. Greensboro was the center of the U.S. textile industry, and the city was covered with textile mills more than 100 years old consuming enormous amounts of water and discharging it to the City Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP).
“In 1976, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) began issuing the first NPDES (water discharge) permits in the U.S. to the textile industry. I was representing many of the textile plants and Linda was representing the City of Greensboro in its attempt to manage all of the waste waters coming into the city’s WWTPs. We spent 10 years building a new WWTP to manage these waters and negotiating the various pretreatment permits required of industry, and fighting off environmental groups that said the City of Greensboro was not acting fast enough.
“As a result, Linda became an excellent environmental lawyer.”
The purpose of the Grainger Barrett Award for Excellence is to honor an outstanding government or public sector attorney as an exemplar of the excellence, dedication and passion for justice of North Carolina’s government and public sector attorneys. It is named for Grainger Barrett, who served as county attorney for Cumberland County and died in 2009. He received the award, which was renamed in his memory, in 2010.
Previous recipients of the award are:
2001 – M. Ann Reed
2003 – Jo Anne Sanford
2004 – John Stuart Bruce
2005 – Gill P. Beck
2006 – Dan McLawhorn
2007 – Ann B. Wall
2008 – Curtis B. Venable
2009 – Jeffrey P. Gray
2010 – Grainger R. Barrett
2011 – James B. Blackburn III
2012 – M. Lynne Weaver and Philip A. Lehman
2014 – Ellis Hankins
2015 – Chief Justice Sarah Parker
2016 – Frayda Bluestein
2017 – Frank Whitney
2018 – Thomas McCormick
2019 – Christine Simpson
2020 – Albert M. Benshoff
2021 – Robert W. Oast, Jr
2022 – Mac McCarley
2023 – Elizabeth Croom
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.