Carter Receives Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section Award
Jean Gordon Carter of Raleigh received the Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section’s Distinguished Service Award in July during the 45th Annual Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law CLE Program in Kiawah Island, S.C.
Maria Lynch, who received the award last year, and Kemp Mosley, section vice chair, presented the award.
“I was thrilled,” said Carter in response to receiving the award. “We have such a great section with so many incredible people – to receive an honor like that from that group is phenomenal.”
Carter served as chair of the Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section in 2001-02. She retired in August from McGuireWoods LLP, which she joined in 2016 after practicing with Hunton & Williams LLP for nearly 26 years. Carter was a partner in both firms.
Carter is a Certified Public Accountant and N.C. State Bar Board Certified Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law. She graduated in 1983 with high honors from Duke University School of Law, where she earned Order of the Coif and served on the editorial board of the Duke Law Journal.
Carter earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and English in 1977 from Wake Forest University, where she graduated magna cum laude with honors in Accountancy. She was a Carswell Scholar and inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
Her contributions to the bar and community at large are numerous. Carter is a Fellow of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the American College of Tax Counsel and the American Bar Foundation. She has also served as chair of the Duke University Estate Planning Council, the Triangle Community Foundation, and Girl Scouts North Carolina Coastal Pines, and as president of the Wake County Estate Planning Council.
Carter also possesses a lengthy resume of service to the North Carolina Bar Association, where she has served on the Board of Governors and numerous committees, and the North Carolina Bar Foundation, where she has served on the Board of Directors and chaired the Endowment Committee.
The rewards of her involvement in the Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section can be summed up in one word – relationships.
“The connections,” Carter elaborated. “Getting to know people who practice in the same practice area and learning from the other people involved in the section. My mentors were Graham Holding and Christy Reid. They’re the ones I started practicing with 41 years ago. And every year at the annual meeting, I would get to see them. Christy and I had a tradition of going out for dinner across the meeting and just catching up.
“And there are so many other friends – Ann Hanks, Rudy Ogburn, Debbie Hildebran – the list goes on forever. There’s just tons: Linda Johnson, Larry Rocamora, Maria Lynch, Sandy Clark.”
Carter began practicing law 41 years ago, and shortly thereafter became involved in the section.
“I have been a member of the section for 40 years. And I have been to the annual meeting just about every year, except when I was nine months pregnant. Christy was born maybe a week and a half later, so I didn’t make it that year. But that’s the only one I remember missing – the year Christy came. Our kids have grown up on Kiawah. We are moving to Kiawah.
“We went every year for the Estate Section or the Tax Section; the Tax Section was there originally, and the Estate Section came several years later. But we went there generally twice a year because I went for both sections and our kids grew up there. As they were growing up, that was the beach they knew and we knew they would come back there and they do, regularly.”
Involvement in the section and its annual meetings have enhanced Carter’s practice tremendously.
“The CLE! It’s the best CLE around for an estate practitioner in North Carolina. You get it from the best people in your state. It’s focused on North Carolina. There is literally, and I’ve been to all the national and everything else out there – take your choice – no CLE better for an estates lawyer than our CLE at that section meeting each year.
“The other side is to be able to tap into the people who are in that section and ask questions and learn from them. It’s phenomenal. The folks in our section are incredibly generous in answering questions and helping each other out. It’s just a remarkably congenial group. And the social connection, the friend connection, is tremendous.
“To carry the connections further, if I need a lawyer anywhere in North Carolina, I know somebody there I can call in my state. People will always tell me who’s the real estate lawyer in town or whatever else I need. It is the networking of who you know. I’m not exaggerating. It has been an invaluable resource.”
To that end, even in retirement, Carter intends to stay involved in the NCBA and the Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section.
“While I’m retiring from legal practice in North Carolina and moving to South Carolina, I’ve already renewed my bar membership and intend to stay very active in the section and active in the Bar Association,” Carter concluded. “I wouldn’t want to give that up!”
Previous recipients of the Estate Planning & Fiduciary Law Section Distinguished Service Award are:
2018 – Graham Holding
2019 – Jimmy Narron
2020 – Rudy L. Ogburn
2021 – Elizabeth L. Quick
2022 – Robert Haggard
2023 – Maria Lynch
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.