Retired state supreme court justice tapped to lead law school
Patricia Timmons-Goodson is a retired North Carolina Supreme Court justice. Photo courtesy of Patricia Timmons-Goodson.
North Carolina Central University has appointed Patricia Timmons-Goodson, a retired North Carolina Supreme Court justice, as the dean of its law school.
“I am humbled and excited about the opportunity I have been granted to lead NCCU Law during a time of great change in the landscape of legal education and the practice of law,” Timmons-Goodson told the ABA Journal in an email.
She starts the position in July, according to a May 15 news release.
A former prosecutor, legal aid lawyer and trial judge, Timmons-Goodson was the first Black woman elected to North Carolina Court of Appeals in 1998. In 2006, Timmons-Goodson was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and she was also the first Black woman to receive that appointment.
She retired in 2012, and in 2014, then-President Barack Obama appointed her to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Also, Timmons-Goodson has had various appointments with the ABA. That includes serving on the Journal’s Board of Editors.
And from 2013 to 2015, she was a member of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar’s accreditation committee. Additionally, she was a commissioner on the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession, served on the executive committee of the ABA Judicial Division’s Appellate Judges Conference, and co-chaired the ABA’s Judges’ Journal editorial board.
