Member Spotlight: Brandon McPherson
Brandon McPherson is the ABA District 9 Representative for the Young Lawyers Division and co-chair of the Disaster Legal Services Committee. He served as Education Law Section Chair in 2020-21. In this interview, Brandon shares his thoughts on service, professionalism, fatherhood, work-life balance, and the lifelong friends he has made as an NCBA member.
2021 was an important year for Brandon McPherson. He was completing his service as chair to the section. In October, he joined Poyner Spruill as a partner in their education law practice group. His third son was born.
As an education law attorney, a husband and father, a member of F3, and a volunteer in his community, Brandon is a passionate advocate for doing everything he can to improve the lives of North Carolinians.
Throughout these experiences, his mission to help others has remained a central part of his life, whether that is in his practice, service as an NCBA leader and individual in his community, or in his family. Impacting others for the greater good is at the heart of it all.
“One of the greatest days of my life was getting into law school and then passing the bar was the second-best day. It has been a great opportunity to do good for other people and for humanity. That is what I see lawyers doing. That is what I look at the practice as being about. It is about helping other people, whether it is fixing a problem or helping them resolve differences or whatever the issue is. As I tell my son Charlie – he’s five – I say, ‘Daddy’s job is to help people.’”
Brandon, who was born and raised in Scotland County, knew he wanted to become a lawyer at an early age. While studying at North Carolina State University, he obtained internships with political action groups and committees and became a runner for a law firm, where he fell in love with education law – in his words, “helping those who are educating others.” He took a brief detour, working at the General Assembly as a graduate intern for the late Representative Doug Yongue, before returning to education law.
Brandon, right, pictured at the 2019 NCBA Law Student Networking Event.
One way Brandon helps North Carolinians is through his role as co-chair of the Disaster Legal Services Committee, along with his fellow co-chair Brad Piland. Brandon serves in this position as part of his role as the ABA YLD District Representative for North Carolina, and this is the second year of his term. As an education law attorney, Brandon had previous experience assisting school boards as they are working to respond to disasters. Following Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Dorian, he worked extensively with school boards as they were responding to these events.
Why is the Disaster Legal Services Committee especially important?
The ABA provides legal services under a congressional act through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and works with local and national partners following a natural disaster. Before one occurs, Brandon, Brad, and the committee put plans into place through communicating with the NCBA, NCBF, Legal Aid of North Carolina, and other organizations early on. Their efforts prepare the way for teams to work together if and when a disaster occurs.
“We work in tandem to organize and plan responses to natural disasters. There are a lot of phone calls. A lot of preparation goes in to preparing for national disasters before they happen. Thankfully, we have such wonderful partners and teammates. I have heard the ABA and FEMA compliment the way we respond to natural disasters here at the state level. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of it.”
“We spend a substantial amount of time preparing for when a call comes to engage disaster legal services, because between the actual disaster hitting can be a short period of time, or it could be a long period of time. Until there is a disaster declaration by the president, we cannot engage disaster legal services.”
“So much of that planning has been the product of years of experience, from those who have come before me and the team who is currently doing this job, who have tried and done different things over the years and figured out some things that work well in certain places and with certain partners.”
Brandon recalls the committee’s work in 2021, when Tropical Storm Fred made landing on the western part of the state, resulting in a significant damage to the area.
“Sadly, NC has extensive experience responding to natural disasters. However, Tropical Storm Fred provided something of a different take because it is not that coastal communities or even southeastern and eastern North Carolina was impacted. It was the western part of the state, which is typically not where you are going to see hurricanes.”
Following the storm, Brandon, Brad, and the Disaster Legal Services Committee worked alongside the YLD, the NCBA and North Carolina Bar Foundation, Legal Aid, and the ABA to assist the communities in western North Carolina. Brandon was one of several YLD members involved, and he is quick to name others who were a part of these efforts. One is Elizabeth Brooks Savage, a member of the Disaster Legal Services with the ABA. Two others are YLD executive committee members.
“I want to highlight the wonderful work of two members of the YLD Executive Committee, Collins Saint and Jonathan Bogues. Both of those folks jumped in with both feet to actually organizing attorney volunteers to respond to these needs of the communities in western North Carolina following the tropical storm and partnering with Legal Aid.”
As he looks back on working with this team after the 2021 tropical storm, Brandon is grateful for each person, because they were able to work together for the people of North Carolina.
Volunteering is a special experience, as it provides the chance to develop friendships with others who are passionate about public service.
“The most unusual situations often breed some of the best friendships and relationships. When you work with folks during natural disasters you grow to see how hard they work in answering the calls they get to help others.”
Brandon also contributed to the well-being of others through his service within the Education Law Section. Between 2017 and 2020, Brandon rose from treasurer, secretary, and vice chair before becoming chair.
In 2016, Brandon became involved with the section through his work on the LIFT Committee, which stands for Legal Information for Teachers. This role gave him the chance to assist administrators, teachers, and students in a specific way.
“LIFT is a program that the Education Law Section puts on as a service to teachers, administrators who want to come and learn from lawyers about the law in such a way that they can do so for minimal to no cost, and it allows them to ask questions and see the perspective of lawyers who represent their employer and who represent teachers. It brings together folks who represent employees, school districts, and students. It is an opportunity to the folks who spend a lot of time teaching kids.”
The LIFT program, his first volunteer role with the section, gave him the opportunity to assist both teachers and students. This experience led to new ways to volunteer with the section and paved the way to the roles that followed.
Brandon’s service with the section created new opportunities to highlight the field he is passionate about. He is often surprised to find that education law is not as well-known as it might be, considering its impact.
“That is one of the most interesting things, which is people have no clue about education law until you start pointing it out to them. And then it becomes very apparent. It may be more apparent to parents and students now than it was in the past because of COVID-19 and the response to it. The fact that school boards and districts have lawyers is something that everybody is like, ‘Oh yeah.”
In 2020, Brandon stepped into the role of Education Law Chair.
“As an extrovert, I had a vision for what my year as chair was going to be like, but those initiatives changed, and I’m sure that every section leader experienced something like that.”
“As we were responding to the needs of our clients, there were working groups popping up, there were groups of people trying to serve students in this new world, that essentially in 15 days from the time the world shut down on March 15, 2020, until April 1, that is the amount of time it took for school teachers, administrators, and students to respond – ‘OK. This is the new normal. We have to do it differently from the rest of the year.’ A lot of what I thought my year was going to be sort of pivoted and changed.”
Looking back on his year as chair, Brandon was amazed and grateful for the NCBA, which pivoted to remote Zoom meetings, and for how the section banded together despite the difficulties posed by the pandemic.
“It is an opportunity to work on things that can help education lawyers, and law students interested in education law – because that was one of my big pushes once I became vice chair and then chair – to increase law student involvement in the Education Law Section. That was ensuring our law student rep. was on every call they could be on, ensuring they were participating, and getting law students energized about education law.”
Prior to serving as Education Law Chair, Brandon was the Law Student Division Director with the YLD (2019). In this role, he realized his passion for introducing students to lawyers who held similar interests – something he sees is very much needed.
“The opportunity to get into law schools and help law students is always fun and to help connect them with lawyers. One of the two things I hear all the time from practicing lawyers is ‘I need help finding talent. I’ve got to find someone energized, or excited, or who knows something as far as a base level goes about x.’ And I hear law students talking all the time – talking about, ‘I wish I could find someone interested in doing x.’”
He continues, “Playing matchmaker was one of my all-time favorite jobs when I was in the Law Student Division as the Division Director.”
Brandon, right, with his wife, left, and three sons.
In 2021, Brandon was recognized by the YLD as the Robinson O. Everett Professionalism Award recipient. The award honors young lawyers who exhibit the spirit of legal professionalism and service.
What advice would you give to law students who are looking to grow in the area of professionalism?
“There’s a few things I would say. You are asking one of the right questions, which is ‘how do I get better?’ I literally wake up every day wondering how I can get better as a professional, as a parent, as a husband. Maybe not everyone thinks this way, but I certainly do. I want to be better than the day before.
“One of the things I would say is always offer grace to someone when you can. Put another way, always be considerate of others. There is a way you can go about the practice of law in such a way that creates a reputation.
“You, throughout your career, build a reputation for the type of lawyer you want to be. One of the things you want is you want people to not dread having to engage with you. I would say, always be considerate to others.
“Think about what the other person is going through. Uniformly, if someone asks me for a continuance, unless it is really going to be detrimental to my client’s situation, I say, absolutely, you can have more time. Because you never know what’s on the other side of that request. They could have a sick wife, a sick child, they could be going through a mental health crisis, and you just don’t know. So, I always think being considerate is the first thing.
“The second is never miss an opportunity to make a friend. The person on the other side of the V from you, the other lawyer, they are not the enemy. They are your colleague and I always think it is important to treat them that way. Doesn’t mean you are going to like everything they do or the way they do it. You can always be kind. There is no reason not to be kind. And probably one of the last things I tell them is work hard. People notice when you work hard.”
Working hard is important, as is balancing work with priorities outside of the office. Brandon shares why one must keep this in mind.
“Unless you can create a life outside of being a lawyer, there is going to be a lack of reward at some point, a lack of satisfaction, a lack of self-value, that will come.
In his own life, Brandon is a big believer in not only making time for his faith, the people he loves, but also remembering what is important each day: what is irreplaceable.
“The thing that is my North Star is my faith and my family. Having purpose for me is centered on my belief in God and my love for my family. The concept of work-life balance isn’t necessarily work-life balance, it is the act of juggling and remembering which balls break and which ones don’t. And your family is the one that breaks. You don’t want to drop that ball.”
He adds, “That is a kernel of advice for young lawyers – no matter what is going on, being present as a husband, as a son, as a father, because all the other things can go away. They can all disappear. But being present and being with your family, you can’t replace that.”
“That may mean early mornings and late nights and all other sorts of other crazy stuff to be able to do both, but I will say that showing up for your family is probably the most important thing that I would share with a young lawyer about work-life balance.”
For Brandon, being a dad has shaped his perception of time, one that has led him to view it as more precious than in years past.
“The interesting thing about time is you think you are wasting it, but there is no such thing. As a kid, I was always in a hurry to grow up to be older, to do this or do that, and looking back on it, It was one of the silliest things ever. The concept that time is a gift I don’t think I really appreciated until I had kids. Just because it is – you see change so quickly through the eyes of a child, and I think human connection is incredibly valuable, and when it is absent, we feel it with people.”
Brandon shares that exercise has been beneficial in his life. As a member of F3, Brandon regularly wakes up at 5 a.m. to work out with a group of like-minded men. It has made a difference to his physical health as well as his emotional well-being.
Brandon with fellow F3 members at an April 2017 event at the North Carolina State Capitol building.
“I can feel the difference when I am doing it regularly versus when I am not able to do it regularly. The endorphins that are released through physical exercise I think play into the mental and emotional health side of it, and you also feel better when you move your body – when you engage in something that is not the practice of law.”
Brandon enjoys volunteering within his community whenever he is able.
“It is very rewarding to me to serve in a capacity, to serve external organizations that aren’t legally related, just showing up and doing good work for others whether that is at church, A Place at the Table or Healing Transitions. Volunteering someplace and doing good for other people, not because it is related to your profession in any way but because that is a good thing for you to do.
“And I don’t necessarily look at that as giving back. No, what you are doing is you are actually being served by serving others. Anytime I have been able to serve someone else, it has probably provided me more of a benefit than it has ever provided them. The life experience of talking to folks who aren’t lawyers, or a client is going to make me a better lawyer.”
Brandon finds that having this balance between time spent assisting others outside the law, within his practice, and within the NCBA are significant, as are the friendships he has made through his NCBA membership. He reflects on one in particular – with the person who introduced him to the NCBA.
While he was a student at Campbell Law School, Brandon reconnected with Whitfield Gibson, who is also from Scotland County. At the time, Campbell Law School had a program where experienced law students mentored 1Ls, and Whitfield introduced Brandon to the NCBA. They would go on to become lifelong friends.
Moments such as these remind him of the gift of connecting with others, something that Brandon finds is a core part of what it means to be an NCBA member.
“It adds to your practice, and never having experienced life without the NCBA, and I am certain there are other organizations out there offer connection, but I tell you, the nature of the NCBA and what it has provided me personally is incredible.”
“Whether it is connecting with colleagues across the state, who I would never have reason to speak to or engage with or hanging out with folks I have known for 20 years at this point, it is the opportunity to get together with like-minded people and better serve the profession and the state because those two things really do help other people and help continue making the lives of other North Carolinians better. And that is what we are here to do – to help people and make their lives better.”
Speaking of being a member of the NCBA, Brandon shares, “Having the opportunity to serve fellow lawyers in the community – it’s been a gift. It’s the value of friendships I have made and created with other lawyers.”
Jessica Junqueira is communications manager for the North Carolina Bar Association.