Bill Mills
Bill Mills will receive the Founders Award. The highest award NCAJ gives, the award recognizes extraordinary service to justice and to NCAJ in the tradition of our founding members, Allen Bailey, Charles Blanchard, James Clontz, Eugene Phillips and William Thorp.
Mills was president of NCAJ, then called the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, in 1999-2000. In the years preceding his presidency, NCAJ had worked to outlaw the death penalty for those with intellectually disabilities, and in 2001, the N.C. General Assembly enacted the strongest such bill in the country. Mills handled the first hearing under this statute and obtained a reversal of his client’s death sentence. As one of only a few trial lawyers’ associations that include criminal defense attorneys, NCAJ has fought to abolish, suspend or limit the death penalty throughout its history.
Mills’ NCAJ presidency coincided with Hurricane Floyd, when NCAJ members raised $100,000 in five days for victims and dedicated countless hours of volunteer work helping people rebuild their lives. Mills also led NCAJ in support of the NAACP’s boycott of South Carolina, which eventually led the Palmetto State to pull the Confederate flag down from the state capital.
“The Academy did not hesitate to meet this challenge, while other organizations refused,” Mills recalled. “We remained committed to the ideals of equality and justice that have made the Academy great.”
Mills practiced Personal Injury with Glenn, Mills, Fisher, & Mahoney P.A., in Durham for most of his career. He also taught trial advocacy and was director of the Trial Advocacy Program at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill and was a senior law lecturer at Duke University School of Law. NCAJ presented him with the Charles Becton Teaching Award in 2003.
Mills also served on University of North Carolina Board of Visitors, was president of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Eastern North Carolina Division and was an N.C. State Bar Councilor and Vice Chairman of the N.C. State Bar Ethics Committee.
