About Nancy Henderson
Nancy Henderson is an award-winning journalist who has published hundreds of articles in Smithsonian, The New York Times, Parade, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. The author of Sewing Hope and Able! How One Company’s Extraordinary Workforce Changed the Way We Look at Disability Today, she enjoys breaking stereotypes and often writes about people who are making a difference through their work. Over the years, she’s enjoyed listening to family stories about her grandfather, who prosecuted cases as a solicitor general in North Carolina long before she was born.
Articles written by Nancy Henderson
Paper Chase
Maura Abeln Smith oversees all things legal at International Paper Co.Maura Abeln Smith believes that if you fall off a horse, you should climb right back on. Literally. The accident happened in the fall of 2003, when Smith—an accomplished equestrian—was riding her horse and it bolted and spun, throwing her to the ground and breaking her back and wrist. This was six months after she had moved to Stamford, Conn., to start her job as senior vice president and general counsel for International Paper Co. After working from home for a month, Smith returned to her …
The Great Communicator
When Leo Bearman Jr. speaks, juries listenLeo Bearman Jr. had been practicing law with his dad for only a few months when Leo Bearman Sr., a larger-than-life icon in the Memphis legal community, handed him the case file for his first jury trial. “Thanks, Daddy, but do me a favor,” Bearman said. “If you’re there I’ll be worrying about how I should have asked a question or if you disapprove. So please don’t come to court.” “That’s fine. I’m tied up that day anyway,” the elder Bearman replied. “Just get the case …
Representing Monsanto
Adam Peck isn't afraid of controversial casesAdam Peck was a young partner at Birmingham's Lightfoot, Franklin & White in 1993 when he defended Monsanto, the biotechnology and former chemical giant, for the first time. The St. Louis, Mo., company was facing PCB contamination claims from property owners near Lake Logan Martin. "That was a pretty manageable situation," Peck, now 48, recalls. "I mean, it was a big complicated class action lawsuit, but it was fairly contained." Not so with Abernathy v. Monsanto, which ultimately prompted …
Fifth-Generation Lawyer
Joseph B. Cheshire V lives up to expectationsEver since March 2006, when an African-American exotic dancer accused three white Duke University lacrosse players of gang-raping her at an off-campus party in Raleigh, N.C., the case had consumed Joseph B. Cheshire V. But not even the painstakingly prepared Cheshire could have predicted the stunning turn of events on Dec. 15 of that year. Sitting in the packed courtroom, with his 23-year-old client David Evans right behind him, his colleague Brad Bannon next to him, and more than 100 reporters …
Bringing New Orleans Back
Kim Boyle defends her clients—and her hometownKim Boyle was sitting in a Louisiana State Bar Association board meeting on Saturday, August 27, 2005 when, she recalls, "our cell phones and our BlackBerrys started blowing up" with the news that Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans. By Sunday morning, she and her parents had evacuated and driven to Houston. Still, she says, "Everything seemed like it was going to be fine. We just thought we'd be gone for two or three days like we were for Ivan [in September 2004]. It really …
Murderous Spouses, Media Frenzies and a Client Named Snake
Defense lawyer Leslie Ballin has seen it allLeslie Ballin flips open his cell phone and scrolls to a photo of three little girls at a family gathering. The caption beneath it reads: Having fun with cousins. "She sent it to me this weekend," he says. "She" is Mary Winkler, the petite, dark-haired client whose murder case catapulted Ballin into the national spotlight in 2006. Thanks to Ballin, a partner with Memphis' Ballin, Ballin & Fishman, and his colleague Steve Farese, Winkler is a free woman in spite of her admission that she …
The Coal Miner's Son
Low-key energy lawyer Bruce Cryder is a giant in his fieldFor most people, an eight-day sojourn in a cramped scientific outpost in the middle of the desert would not be the ideal vacation. But for Lexington attorney and avid birdwatcher Bruce Cryder, last year's trip to the Chiricahua Mountains in southeast Arizona offered a chance to spot the red-faced warbler and the elegant trogon, a striking bird with a metallic green head and scarlet belly. "We did bird watching every day from before dawn till late at night in all types of climates, from the …
For the People
Jere Beasley has wrangled some of the state's biggest settlements and forced corporate giants to change their waysFor five long days in September 1993, Jere Beasley argued a strong case in a wrongful-death suit against Kubota, a tractor manufacturer. He uncovered internal documents in which company officials estimated how many people would be killed each year on Kubota equipment and what it would cost to settle the inevitable lawsuits. Kubota's former safety official testified against the corporation. An important defense witness fumbled on the stand. Now Kubota was offering Beasley's client $10 million. …
Master of Mediation
John Trimble has earned his reputation as one of the state’s top negotiatorsSometimes the smallest case can be the toughest. John C. Trimble was mediating a nasty feud between neighbors—an older couple and a younger one with a son in high school—who had gotten along well until the elder gentleman retired and began spending most of his time at home. Before long, the man grew so annoyed with the teenager, who often peeled out of the driveway or played loud music while shooting hoops, that he erected a fence along the boundary line. But there was one problem: He built …
The Born Communicator
From picking cotton to tackling some of the nation’s toughest class action suits, W. James Singleton isn’t afraid of hard work. And he’s never at a loss for wordsFor W. James Singleton, the challenge was just too tempting to pass up. In 1994, at the invitation of New Orleans trial lawyer Wendell Gauthier, he joined the 60-firm trial team that brought the nation’s first class action suit against Big Tobacco. “One of [Gauthier’s] close friends died as a result of cigarette smoking. That friend was named [Peter] Castano,” says Singleton, 58, the managing partner of The Singleton Law Firm in Shreveport. “I bought into it because I knew it was …
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