Meet Your JD 16 Bar Councilors

We are delighted to introduce you to your current Bar Councilors. The North Carolina State Bar is governed by a 61-member council whose members are lawyers elected by the lawyers in their home communities.

Judge Dorothy Hairston Mitchell (Photo on Right)

Judge Dorothy Hairston Mitchell has been a State Bar Councilor for Durham County since 2017. She has served on the Indigent Defense Services Commission since 2017 as the representative of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys and is currently its Chairperson, elected in 2021. She serves on many other boards and commissions and is committed to community service and advocacy. 

Mitchell is a District Court Judge in Durham County. She previously served as an associate professor of law at North Carolina Central University School of Law where she taught criminal law, and supervised students in the Juvenile Law Clinic. She has also served as the director of the Social Justice and Racial Equality Institute and as the legal director at the Center for Child & Family Health. 

She is admitted to the North Carolina State Bar and the United States Middle District of North Carolina. Mitchell graduated in 1999 from North Carolina Central University with a bachelor’s degree in English and Political Science. She graduated from North Carolina Central University School of Law in 2002. She has primarily focused her legal work in the areas of juvenile and criminal law, as she loves working with children and families. 

Meredith Nicholson (Photo on Left)

Meredith Nicholson has served in the role of Bar Councilor since January 1, 2022. She is a founding member of Nicholson Pham law firm, and earned her JD from UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law in December 1999. She was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in March 2000. Meredith worked for Legal Aid helping low-income clients with family law and disability issues before accepting a position as project manager for a death penalty research study with UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law Dean, John Boger. Meredith worked as a criminal defense associate with Kurtz & Blum for eight years representing clients in Wake, Durham, Chatham and Orange counties on misdemeanor and felony charges.

Meredith enjoys fellowship in the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproductive Attorneys. She is a member of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys and past president of the Durham Orange Women Attorneys chapter. She is one of two bar councilors elected to the State Bar Council from Durham County. She is past president of the Latino Affairs Committee at the North Carolina Bar Association and has been invited to speak about Hispanic criminal defense issues on radio and television programs devoted to Latino outreach. Meredith previously served on the executive board of the Women’s Birth and Wellness Center in Chapel Hill.

Meredith co-authored a Spanish-English legal dictionary, Critical Terms in Legal Proceedings, published by the North Carolina Bar Association. She has also been a guest lecturer at the North Carolina Central University School of Law on domestic violence defense. She was invited to Mexico to teach Mexican lawyers and judges during that country’s transition to oral advocacy in their criminal justice system. Meredith commonly contributes her time and expertise to the benefit Hispanic criminal defense and LGBT issues on radio and television programs devoted to Latino outreach as well as to community groups.

Meredith speaks Spanish and French.