New Tax Section Award Presented to C. Wells Hall III
C. Wells Hall III
of Nelson Mullins in Charlotte is the first recipient of the NCBA Tax Section’s Lifetime Achievement and Service Award. Hall was honored in May during the Tax Section Annual Meeting in Kiawah Island, S.C.
The new award “recognizes attorneys who have demonstrated outstanding professional work and exemplary reputation in tax matters and have provided extraordinary service to the Section, the legal profession and the public in endeavors relating to the field of tax law and the mission and activities of the Section.”
Hall is a past chair of the NCBA’s Tax Section (1986-88) and Young Lawyers Division (1984-85), and a former member of the NCBA Board of Governors (1989-92). He will complete his one-year term as chair of the ABA Section of Taxation at the end of this month at the ABA Annual Meeting in Denver.
Hall was pleasantly surprised to be selected as the first recipient of the NCBA Tax Section’s new award.
“I felt like there were a lot of people who went ahead of me who would have been in the mix,” Hall said. “With my years of involvement with the Section, I might have anticipated getting it at some point, but I was a little surprised to be the first, and I told them that.”
“And the response was, ‘Wells, you’re right, there are some good people, and we’ll go back and get them. But you really are the right person for the first one.’ That’s what they told me, and I really appreciate it.”
Hall graduated with honors in 1970 from North Carolina State University, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated in 1973 from Duke University School of Law, where he served as editor in chief of the Duke Legal Research Program.
From there he had the good fortune of beginning his tax law practice with Richard E. Thigpen Jr. of Thigpen & Hines, PA in Charlotte. His corporate tax law professor at Duke, the late Richard D. Hobbet, recommended Hall to Thigpen.
“We hit it off from the start,” Hall recalled recently in his chair’s column for the ABA Tax Times. The title of the article, which is quoted here with permission from the author, was “Mentoring Young Lawyers and the Role of the Tax Section.”
“I loved my work and the people I was working with at Thigpen & Hines, a boutique tax firm,” Hall writes. “Dick’s father, Richard E. Thigpen, was still practicing and took an interest in me, giving me interesting tax problems and matters to work on and always giving me constructive feedback. Dick always made sure my plate was full of work, and I could not have been happier.
“In those days, in Charlotte, North Carolina, tax lawyers had to cover everything –
individual, trust, estate, wills, partnership, corporate, audits, appeals, and tax litigation. There were times when Thigpen & Hines dominated the entire Tax Court calendar. Other tax lawyers at the firm, Randall Groves, Ken Essex, and Woody Efird, as well as Dick Sr. and Jr., were great mentors for a young tax lawyer.”
Hall caught another big break early on at Thigpen & Hines when the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) was enacted.
“Dick told me that he wanted me to take that part of the firm’s practice and run with it,” Hall continues. “I read all of the guidance and regulations that came out. I attended an ABA seminar on the new law in New York City with Dick’s encouragement. The new law required that every pension and profit-sharing plan be amended to comply – perfect work for a young associate.
“We amended over two hundred plans in the next few years, and we got many new client referrals. Meanwhile, Dick encouraged me to be well rounded as a tax lawyer. We tried numerous Tax Court cases and civil cases in state and federal courts with juries.”
Thigpen’s mentorship opened other doors for Hall, including those leading into his involvement in the NCBA.
“Thigpen & Hines had the best tax library in town, so other lawyers often visited our office to research in our library,” Hall writes. “I quickly got to know the lawyers with other firms in downtown Charlotte. We developed mutual respect and lifelong personal and professional relationships. Dick encouraged me to get as much CLE as was available to me and to become active with the North Carolina and American Bar Associations. We attended the North Carolina Bar Association annual meeting every year, where Dick seemed to know everybody. His father had been President of the NCBA in 1948-49, and Dick was no wallflower.
“Dick impressed on me the value of being active in the Tax Section. Dick was appointed as the first Chair of the newly formed NCBA Tax Section, served as President of the NCBA (1988-89), was active in the Civil and Criminal Tax Penalties Committee of the ABA Tax Section, and later served as President of the American College of Tax Counsel (1993). Whatever success I have realized during my career as a tax lawyer, I owe it to my early years practicing tax law at the feet of Dick Thigpen Jr. He was a great role model. The mentoring and guidance that I received from him has been invaluable to me.”
Hall no doubt has returned the favor many times over in mentoring young tax attorneys at the firms where he has practiced.
Hall practiced with Thigpen & Hines until 1984 when the firm merged into Moore & Van Allen, where he continued to practice for an additional 16 years. He joined Mayer Brown in 2000 and practiced there for 13 years before joining Nelson Mullins, where he has been a partner since July 1, 2013.
At 75 years of age, Hall is still going strong and has no plans to retire in the immediate future.
“And the reason is I still enjoy it and I still have a passion for it,” Hall declared. “Even though you have to deal with demanding clients, and stressful situations, and you have to work very hard, I still love what I do. My willingness to work as hard as necessary has always gotten me over that next hill and I haven’t burned out. At some point I will decide to retire, but I am not sure I would have that much fun. I still enjoy doing what I am doing.”
“I am often asked, ‘Why don’t you retire?’ I look at it this way: Let’s say you’re playing Major League Baseball and you’re 40 years old or you’re playing professional football and you’re 44 years old and you’re still making the all-star team and you’re still winning championships, and you’re having fun. And you are getting paid for it! Why would you quit?”
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.