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SMITH MOORE LEATHERWOOD LLP

Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP is a full-service law firm with over 160 attorneys located in seven offices: Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Wilmington, NC; and Charleston, and Greenville, SC.

History

The first known predecessor firm of Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP was Brooke, Parker, Smith & Hayes, which was founded in 1919 in Greensboro, NC. Founding partner Julius C. Smith, a South Carolinian and a Wake Forest University law graduate, served two terms as president of the North Carolina State Bar. He was active in the American Bar Association, serving as chair of its Committee on Administrative Law.

After two years, Johnson J. Hayes withdrew from the firm to accept an appointment as a U.S. District Judge and was replaced by C. Richard Wharton, who had been practicing at another local firm. The name evolved to Brooks, Parker, Smith & Wharton at this time, in 1921. Smith and Wharton later withdrew from the firm and joined D. Edward Hudgins, Jr., to form Smith, Wharton & Hudgins. They practiced here until Hudgins withdrew to practice elsewhere, upon which they replaced him with Welch O. Jordan, thus changing the firm name to Smith, Wharton & Jordan. In the summer of 1948, Smith and Wharton began merger discussions with a Greensboro firm by the name of Sapp & Moore, at which point Jordan left the firm to begin a solo practice.

Sapp & Moore was formed just three years earlier, in December 1945, by Armistead W. Sapp Sr., and Beverly C. Moore in Greensboro. Moore was a graduate of Yale Law School and had just returned from military service. Prior to entering the war, he was a sole practitioner for eight years. A native of Greensboro, Moore served in the North Carolina General Assembly and as President of the North Carolina Bar Association.

The two firms formed Smith, Wharton, Sapp & Moore on July 1, 1948, and employed ten lawyers. It was the largest law firm in the area at the time.

By 1952, Wharton withdrew from the firm, and the remaining name partners replaced him with new partner McNeill Smith, thus becoming Smith, Sapp, Moore & Smith. Sapp faced health problems in 1955, causing the firm to evolve to Smith, Moore, Smith & Pope with the name partner addition of Harrell Pope. Within several years, Pope moved to an in-house role with a company, and Braxton Schell and Bynum M. Hunter became name partners. The firm was named Smith Moore Smith Schell & Hunter and remained that way until 1986. Along the way, it acquired the firm of Reynolds & Cox in 1983 and gained that firm’s offices in Raleigh, and Cary, NC.

In late 1985, the firm employed sixty-one lawyers, nearly 150 administrative professionals including fifteen paralegals, and was the second largest firm in the state. It began merger discussions with Helms, Mulliss & Johnston based in Charlotte, NC. The merger became effective in January 1986, and the combined firms were named Smith, Helms, Mulliss & Moore.

After sixteen years the merged firm reorganized in early 2002 due to tremendous changes in the Charlotte and Greensboro markets, resulting in two separate firms: Smith Moore LLP and Helms Mulliss & Wicker LLP. Smith Moore retained offices in Greensboro, Raleigh, and Atlanta after the reorganization.

In April 2005, Smith Moore opened an office in Wilmington, NC, led by a partner who practiced earlier in his career with the firm in Raleigh. A Charlotte office followed quickly in March 2007, formed by four relocating Greensboro-based Smith Moore attorneys. Two other partners were hired to establish a corporate practice in the office. Also in 2007, Smith Moore acquired Atlanta firm Carter & Ansley LLP, one of the city’s oldest law firms with 13 attorneys focused on life, health and disability insurance work.

In the summer of 2008, Smith Moore merged with Greenville, SC firm Leatherwood Walker Todd & Mann PC to form Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP. At the time, Smith Moore had over 130 attorneys and Leatherwood counted more than 50, with the combined firm having over 180 lawyers and six offices across three states.

Leatherwood Walker Todd & Mann’s origins date back to 1930, when D.B. Leatherwood established his legal practice in Greenville, SC. Leatherwood was born in Waynesville, NC, in 1896 and attended the University of North Carolina. Wesley Walker joined Leatherwood in 1945, and the firm became Leatherwood & Walker. At the time, the office was located in the Poinsett Hotel Building on South Main Street. Three years later, Fletcher Mann joined the firm, and it was renamed Leatherwood, Walker & Mann. The firm grew by several attorneys over the next few years, including the addition of J.D. Todd, upon which the firm became Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann in 1952. In 1986, the firm acquired the Lehman & Pretty firm in Spartanburg, SC, and in 1992, the firm acquired King & Hray also in Spartanburg, SC, expanding its headcount there. Prior to its merger with Smith Moore, the Spartanburg office closed in 2003.

With goals to expand to coastal South Carolina, Smith Moore Leatherwood opened a Charleston, SC office in April 2011 with four attorneys focusing on corporate, litigation, and health care work.

Practice Areas & Industry Groups

The firm’s core practice areas are focused on litigation, business law, health care, intellectual property, real estate, labor and employment, and tax.

The firm’s attorneys serve a wide range of industries, including chemical and life sciences, construction, education, energy, financial services government regulation, health care, insurance, manufacturing, municipalities, non-profits, technology, and transportation.

 Notable lawyers and alumni
 * E. Osborne Ayscue Jr., former President of the North Carolina Bar Association
 * Laura T. Beyer, United States Chief Bankruptcy Judge, Western District of North Carolina
 * Alan W. Duncan, former President of the North Carolina Bar Association
 * Catherine C. Eagles, District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina
 * Sidney S. Eagles Jr., former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Court of Appeals
 * Robert H. Edmunds Jr., former Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina
 * James G. Exum Jr., former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina
 * Anthony R. Foxx, former United States Secretary of Transportation
 * James L. Gale, Chief Judge of the North Carolina Business Court
 * Joi Elizabeth Peake, Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina
 * Deborah K. Ross, former member of the North Carolina House of Representatives
 * Julius C. Smith, former President of the North Carolina State Bar
 * Joshua Stein, North Carolina Attorney General and former member of the North Carolina Senate
 * Ben F. Tennille, former Chief Judge of the North Carolina Business Court
 * Robert A. Wicker, former President of the North Carolina State Bar