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
Practicing Law, Then Making It
Four South Carolina attorneys and legislators on why, and how, they manage bothIn this age of extremism, say attorney-politicians, there’s never been a more critical time for experienced lawyers to enter the political arena—local, state and beyond. Who better to create the law, they point out, than those who practice it daily? “We need people who care about reason and truth. We so need more lawyers in political office who understand and appreciate the role of the rule of law,” says Max Hyde Jr., who has served in the South Carolina House of Representatives, …
And Beyond
Former metallurgical engineer Deborah Peacock makes deals on Earth and among the starsIn 1980, Deborah Peacock was standing at the bottom of the hill, overseeing operations at a Salt Lake City mining mill where copper was ground for industrial use, when the crushing machine operator called her in a panic from the top of the slope. “I have to get out of here!” he yelled. “I can’t take it.” Racing up the hill, Peacock, a metallurgical engineer and the frontline foreman at Kennecott Minerals Company, saw what she describes as “a blanket of tarantulas coming over the …
The Roadmap
Tragedy propelled Amanda Pierson toward her legal callingAmanda Pierson was studying for the Bar in 2014—and already had a job lined up as a litigator—when, just before Father’s Day, her 72-year-old dad unexpectedly died in his sleep from heart failure. Despite the wills and estates class she’d taken in law school, Pierson didn’t know where to begin putting his affairs in order. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know who to call,” she says. “All of us deal with estate planning and probate in our lives, and yet it’s one of …
Engineered for Law
An engineering background guides Todd Basile’s IP workGrowing up in Annapolis, Maryland, Todd Basile was captivated by the Blue Angels demonstration team that soared high above the U.S. Naval Academy next to his family’s home each year. “I wanted to actually be a combat aviator, but my eyes are terrible. It turned into, ‘If you can’t fly ‘em, build ‘em,’” says Basile, who went on to study engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. In the summer of 2005, Basile interned at Smiths Aerospace, now GE Aviation, in …
Vote of Confidence
Attorneys discuss your rights as a voter and what to do if they’re violatedIn her early days as a volunteer poll watcher in Texas, Caitlyn Silhan witnessed a number of voters being turned away because, even though they had updated their registration by mail or in person at the same time as their driver’s licenses, poll workers could find no record of it. Silhan, an attorney at Waters Kraus & Paul in Dallas, went on to successfully sue the state for noncompliance with federal law in 2016 and 2020. “So, now, if a Texan goes to update their driver’s …
Little Big Town
Colorado attorneys talk about practicing law beyond the metroMarcus Lock will never forget the time he snowmobiled 20 miles in the dead of winter, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, to meet with a client who lived where the plows couldn’t go. “I don’t make that mistake anymore,” Lock says with a laugh. It’s not the only adventure that Lock, a civil litigator in Gunnison, has weathered. A mediator once helped him sneak out of a meeting, past an increasingly loud group of angry residents, through the Underground Mining Museum in Mineral …
How Can I Protect My Right To Vote?
To protect your right to vote, you must confirm your voter status verification, your voter registration deadline, and bring your voter ID to the polls. If the poll worker at your poll location does not let you vote, you can still vote with a provisional ballot. Ask for voting assistance if you need language access, a disability accommodation, or a replacement ballot. Contact your election hotline for intimidation protection or to report voter suppression in violation of your Constitutional …
A Serious Thing
Medical malpractice attorney Lance Cline passes down the lessons he’s learnedOn a dark winter night in 1978, the driver of a semitruck was backing a flatbed trailer up to the side of a company’s building to deliver an order of sheet metal, blocking both lanes of Indiana State Road 32 in the process. His truck had no sidelights and, though he was expected, the driver had arrived after hours so there was no one to guide him or warn oncoming traffic. Unaware of the danger, a young woman crashed into the trailer, causing the male passenger in her car to suffer brain …
Threading the Social Media Needle
Employment attorneys on the do’s and don’ts in the workplaceAt the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020, a business client came to labor and employment attorney Kyllan Kershaw with a dilemma: Employees were posting support for Black Lives Matter on social media, tagging the company, and nudging it to support the movement. When the boss chose to steer clear of the issue, he was tagged in an unflattering post about white power. “We were able to kind of thread the needle,” says Kershaw, of Littler Mendelson in Atlanta. “The latter post actually did …
‘I Made Plutonium for Uncle Sam’
Bradley Groff brings an engineer’s perspective to IP lawBrad Groff had already inspected the overhead pipeline at the South Carolina nuclear weapons plant where he worked as a mechanical engineer, making sure the position of the components perfectly matched the 50-year-old illustrations, and hand-sketching his findings on a notepad. Then his hard-nosed supervisor looked at the findings and said, “There’s an old blue-handled valve I think you missed. Go back out and look,” Groff remembers. Somewhat begrudgingly, Groff again climbed the ladder …
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