Roger Askew is the Interim Wake County Attorney in Raleigh, with 35 years of practice concentrating in government liability, civil practice and procedure and appellate litigation.

Askew has served on the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners for 11 years, including two years as chair, and serves on the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ CRIS Committee, which works on the Next Generation Uniform Bar Examination. His other bar leadership includes chairing the Civil Practice and Procedures Committee of the NC Bar Association’s Litigation Section, serving on the NC State Bar Ethics Committee and the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee and serving on the Board of Directors of the NC Association of Defense Attorneys.

His most notable trial matter was the first lead exposure case tried in North Carolina — a bellwether case in Nash County in which he secured a complete defense verdict after a multi-week trial involving experts from across the country.

David Baxter is a partner at Sumrell Sugg in New Bern, with 16 years of practice concentrating in local government, healthcare law, business law, estate planning and real estate. He earned his Juris Doctor from North Carolina Central University School of Law in 2009 and is certified in healthcare compliance.

Baxter serves as county attorney for Lenoir, Jones and Pamlico Counties — widely believed to make him the only attorney in North Carolina simultaneously serving three counties in that role — and represents multiple municipalities. He also advises healthcare providers on regulatory compliance and risk management. This year he launched the firm’s governmental relations practice.

His community leadership includes serving as president of the 3B Judicial District Bar in 2014, president of the Rotary Club of New Bern (2017–2018) and president of Craven County Partners in Education in 2019. He has chaired the Board of Trustees of Camp Albemarle since 2015 and is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association.

Debra Bechtel is senior counsel at Teague Campbell in Asheville, with 34 years of practice concentrating exclusively in local government law. She began her career as a prosecutor before serving as county attorney for Catawba County and now assists counties, cities and towns across North Carolina through her firm.

Bechtel has worked with nearly half of North Carolina’s counties over the past five years, representing 10 health departments, multiple municipalities and serving as town attorney for Fallston and Belwood. She was part of the team that filed opioid litigation on behalf of local governments and served on the 5-5-5 Committee that secured what she described as the strongest opioid settlement allocation agreement for local governments in the country — bringing millions of dollars to communities statewide.

Her bar leadership includes serving as past president of the Catawba County Bar, the 36th Judicial District Bar, the North Carolina County Attorneys Association and the North Carolina Police and Sheriffs Attorney Association.

Ralph Bryant is an attorney at Ralph Bryant Law Firm in Greenville, with 35 years of practice concentrating in constitutional law and civil rights litigation.

Bryant is known for taking on difficult constitutional cases with broad implications for North Carolina citizens, regardless of a client’s ability to pay, driven by a belief that, in the words of Martin Luther King, “justice should be a reality for all of God’s children.” His most significant recent matter is Askew v. City of Kinston, a unanimous North Carolina Supreme Court decision reaffirming the state constitution’s Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process guarantees for all citizens. The case had been dismissed at both the trial court and Court of Appeals levels before the Supreme Court unanimously reversed and ordered the constitutional issues to be re-briefed.

He said his legal idol is Thurgood Marshall — a lawyer who, in his view, transformed the lives of an entire race through the power of civil litigation.

Jason Hicks is the deputy county attorney for Guilford County in Greensboro, with 16 years of practice, including five in North Carolina, currently concentrating in county government law with a focus on child welfare.

Hicks served as president of the North Carolina Social Services Attorneys Association, through which he helped implement a DSS Attorneys 101 training course — the first of its kind in North Carolina since 2016 — to improve onboarding for child welfare attorneys statewide. He serves on the councils of the NC Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice and Children’s Rights Section and Government and Public Sector Section and on the Greensboro Bar Association’s Board of Directors.

He said his most meaningful matters involve establishing permanence for children — whether through reunification with family or placement in an adoptive home — allowing a child “to just be a kid again rather than fearing instability, neglect, or abuse.”

Andrea Leslie-Fite is the Charlotte City Attorney, with 19 years of practice concentrating in local government law.

Leslie-Fite has built a reputation for handling high-stakes matters with clarity and confidence — in the courtroom and advising elected officials through complex policy decisions. Her career has been defined largely by supporting economic development projects that attract major employers and create long-term opportunity for communities, using legal strategy to help replace lost industries with forward-looking sectors.

She has been a fellow of the International Municipal Lawyers Association since 2020 and is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association.

She said she chose local government law because it allows her to serve people where decisions have the most immediate impact on their daily lives — work she describes as being about “more than statutes and cases” but about helping communities grow, solving real problems, and ensuring government operates with integrity and purpose.

Allen Robertson is a shareholder at Robinson Bradshaw in Charlotte, with 37 years of practice concentrating in public finance, particularly for nonprofit healthcare providers and senior living facilities. He served as the firm’s managing partner from 2015 to 2025.

Robertson is one of only two North Carolina lawyers to have served as president of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and received the organization’s Frederick O. Kiel Distinguished Service Award in 2025. He has served as bond counsel or underwriters’ counsel in approximately 200 nonprofit healthcare financings totaling more than $20 billion, with current clients including Novant Health, Duke University Health System and Advocate Health. His notable matters include a 2007 transaction involving 12 series of bonds totaling $1.147 billion for what is now Atrium Health and ongoing work consolidating five separate credit groups following the creation of Advocate Health in 2022.

He was named Charlotte Public Finance Law Lawyer of the Year in 2024 and 2026.