Winston-Salem attorney Jim Fox will become the president of the N.C. State Bar on Thursday at the State Bar's annual meeting.
Fox is the general counsel, corporate secretary and vice president of risk management for Pike Electric Corp. in Mount Airy. He is also of counsel for the law firm of Bell Davis & Pitt P.A. in Winston-Salem. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
The N.C. State Bar, which is in Raleigh, is a state agency that regulates the practice of law in North Carolina.
"We are the group that works to discipline lawyers or, if necessary, disbar them when they do things that hurt clients, so we're oriented to the public," Fox said.
Fox has been involved with the agency for about 15 years and is currently its president-elect.
"When you become an officer the responsibility gets greater, and I feel a big responsibility going into being president," he said.
In his new role with the agency, Fox will supervise pretty much all the State Bar does, including its disciplinary system.
He said any regulations by the State Bar to govern lawyers have to be approved by the state Supreme Court.
"We also pursue cases against people and organizations that are doing the unauthorized practice of law — in other words, non-lawyers that are in one way or another passing themselves off as lawyers," he said.
People often confuse the N.C. State Bar with the N.C. State Bar Association, which is a voluntary organization of lawyers, paralegals and law students in Cary that is focused on serving the public and the legal profession. R. Michael Wells Sr., a senior partner of Wells Jenkins Lucas & Jenkins in Winston-Salem, was recently named the president-elect of the N.C. Bar Association.
The State Bar also has several programs, including the Lawyer Assistant Program and Interest on Lawyer's Trust Accounts, called IOLTA.
The Lawyer Assistant Program offers confidential assistance for lawyers to help them identify and address problems with alcoholism, other drug addictions and mental health disorders.
IOLTA is a nonprofit program that works with lawyers and banks across the state to collect net interest income generated from lawyers' general, pooled trust accounts to fund grants to providers of civil legal services for the indigent and other programs.
The State Bar also certifies paralegals, supervises a continuing legal education program and appoints members of the Board of Law Examiners of the State of North Carolina.
Fox also said, "We're connected in a lot of ways by committees to try to promote the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary."
The top issue that comes before the State Bar is grievance and disciplinary procedures for lawyers.
Fox said situations range from neglecting clients to stealing money from them.
"What we're all about is trying to protect the public by keeping everything as clean as we can in the legal profession," he said.
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