RALEIGH — Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services (LCMS) Press has announced the publication of “The Grandma Stories” written by Campbell Law School Dean J. Rich Leonard.
Growing up in Welcome, North Carolina, Leonard spent much of his childhood on his grandparents’ farm. As a child, he was enchanted by stories of his mother and her siblings on the farm during the Great Depression.
“This is a quirky set of stories set on my grandparents’ Davie County dairy farm decades ago,” Leonard explains. “It grew out of bedtime stories I told my children over the years, which they labeled ‘The Grandma Stories.’”
And while the stories, which range from comical to nail biting to triumphant, that make up the book are primarily aimed at children, Leonard adds it also appeals to a wider audience. “I have found it has a surprising resonance for folks who grew up in rural areas sometime ago,” he said.
The book is beautifully illustrated by North Carolina artist Cam Cline, who studied Fine Art at East Carolina University. After a corporate career as an award-winning graphic designer at GlaxoSmithKline, she now focuses on paintings and commissioned portraits. This is her debut as a childrens’ book illustrator.
This is Leonard’s third published book. Most recently, Leonard wrote “From Welcome to Windhoek: A Judge’s Journey,” the remarkable story of how a boy from rural Welcome, North Carolina, grew up to become an innovative judge, global citizen and go-to guy for court-building in emerging African nations. Along the way, he organizes the first-ever judicial conference in Zambia, jogs with children in Lusaka, dances with a python and has adventures ranging from the harrowing to the hilarious. In the end, he discovers the distance between Welcome and Windhoek is not as great as he imagined, and that both places now occupy adjoining spaces in his heart.
His first book, “The House By the Creek,” is also based on his Davidson County family history, and set in North Carolina during the Revolutionary War.
Over the course of his long career, Leonard has been a pioneering judge, a groundbreaking court administrator, a restorer of historic courthouses and, at age 29 the youngest U.S. District Court Clerk in the country, which gave him a front-row seat to some of the most sensational trials in North Carolina history.
He has also run marathons, climbed mountains, forged cross-continental friendships and embraced life in all its majesty and messiness.
He worked as a special consultant to the U.S. Department of State, where for 20 years he helped developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa create workable court systems.
He is now in his 12th year as Dean of the law school in downtown Raleigh, where he resides with his family.
Copies of the hardcover book can be purchased at Quail Ridge Books and NOFO in Raleigh or on Amazon.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW SCHOOL
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts nearly 5,000 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2026, Campbell Law will celebrate 50 years of graduating legal leaders and 17 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.