RALEIGH — Campbell Law Dean J. Rich Leonard announced today that an anonymous $100,000 gift to the law school has paved the way for the Cheshire Schneider Advocacy Scholarship. The full-tuition competitive scholarship, previously named the Excellence in Advocacy Scholarship, is named in honor of prominent Raleigh attorneys Joseph Cheshire, V and Alan Schneider of Cheshire Parker Schneider & Bryan.
“Campbell Law is thankful for this anonymous gift, and we are pleased to honor the request of our generous donor by naming this scholarship after two of the finest advocates in the North Carolina legal community,” said Leonard. “Joe and Alan are highly accomplished and widely respected, and I can think of no better namesakes for a scholarship to serve as role models for our best and brightest student advocates.”
In keeping with Campbell Law’s mission to educate and develop vigorous advocates for championing and defending individual liberties and justice for all, Campbell Law will annually offer the Cheshire Schneider Advocacy Scholarship to one incoming law student who has achieved demonstrable success in advocacy programs such as debate or mock trial during high school and/or college experiences. The Cheshire Schneider Advocacy Scholarship is a full-tuition scholarship renewable in each of the three years the scholar attends Campbell Law, so long as the scholar remains in good academic standing.
Cheshire is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wake Forest School of Law, where he was the founding Chief Justice of the moot court program. During law school he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Army and served on active duty and then as a reserve officer upon graduation. Over the course of his career, Cheshire has handled cases in 16 of the states or territories of the United States, several foreign countries and 85 of the 100 counties in North Carolina, as well numerous state and federal administrative agencies. He has handled appeals in all state appellate courts, several federal Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Cheshire was responsible for founding the criminal law section of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice, as well as for creating the requirements of the specialization of criminal lawyers by the North Carolina State Bar. He has served a lengthy chairmanship and membership on the Criminal Justice Section of the North Carolina Bar Association and served a three-year membership on the North Carolina Bar Association’s Board of Governors. He has been an appointed member of the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, as well as the Governor’s Judicial Nominating Commission.
Among numerous awards, Cheshire has received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine and the Old North State Award, North Carolina’s two highest civilian honors, as well as the North Carolina Bar’s Highest Award for criminal practitioners, and the Thurgood Marshall award by the North Carolina Advocates for Justice. Extremely active in the community, he served on the first Board of Hospice of Wake County, was instrumental in creating Drug Action of Wake County, served on the board and as president of the Capital Area Soccer league, and helped found and acted as president of the Make A Difference Foundation.
Schneider is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton and California Western School of Law. His principle area of practice involves representing lawyers, doctors, accountants, realtors and other licensed professionals in administrative disciplinary proceedings before their respective licensing boards. He also provides confidential advisory opinions on ethics issues and preventative risk-management consultations, and he represents applicants before the North Carolina Board of Law Examiners on character and fitness issues.
A former Chair of the Ethics Committee for the North Carolina Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section, Schneider currently serves on the North Carolina Advocate for Justice’s Ethics Committee, and is also a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. In November 2007 he was selected to serve on the North Carolina State Bar’s Disciplinary Guidelines Committee. He has spoken and written on topics involving legal ethics, professional responsibility, and defending lawyers in disciplinary proceedings.
Founded in 1978, Cheshire Parker Schneider & Bryan and its lawyers boast more than a century of combined experience protecting the accused or convicted, families and their children, and professionals and their livelihoods. The firm primarily focuses on criminal law, family law, professional ethics and license defense and appeals and motions for appropriate relief.