Burley B. Mitchell, Jr., former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, has joined the board of directors of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
For more than 30 years, Justice Mitchell has served both as an advocate and judge in handling landmark cases in North Carolina and elsewhere in the United States. He currently heads the appellate advocacy and government relations groups of the Raleigh law firm Womble Carlyle.
His many public service activities have included higher education. From 2009 to 2013, he served on the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and from 2005 to 2009, he served on the Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University from. He was also president of the North Carolina State University Alumni Association from 2004 to 2006.
As a judge, Mitchell wrote 484 appellate decisions for the Supreme Court of North Carolina and the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He has repeatedly been voted one of the best commercial litigation, appellate law lawyers and “bet-the-company” litigation lawyers in North Carolina, as published in Woodward White, Inc. Best Lawyers in America. In 2007, he received the North Carolina Award for Public Service, the state’s highest civilian honor, and the North Carolina State University Alumni Association’s College Meritorious Service Award.
The Pope Center, based in Raleigh and founded in 2003, is a nonprofit institute dedicated to improving higher education.
Other members of the Pope Center board are: Arch T. Allen, a retired attorney and former member of UNC-CH board of trustees: J. Edgar Broyhill, III, president, Broyhill Family Group; Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, U.S. House of Representatives; John M. Hood, president, John William Pope Foundation; Joseph L. Lindsley, Sr., investment advisor, Quantitative Process, LLC; James G. Martin, former governor of North Carolina; Tim Moore, speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives; David W. Riggs, vice president of philanthropic strategy, the Philanthropy Roundtable; Jane S. Shaw, former president of the Pope Center; and Susan E. Tannehill, managing senior director, TIAA-CREF Trust Company.