RALEIGH — Campbell Law School Adjunct Professor Rick Glazier, former state legislator and executive director of the N.C. Justice Center, will become the director of Campbell Law’s Blanchard Community Law Clinic (BCLC) effective Jan. 1, 2023, Dean J. Rich Leonard announced today.
The clinic’s mission is to help individuals being served by local nonprofits remove legal barriers to housing and employment. Since the clinic opened in fall 2017, law students staffing the clinic have served more than 700 low-income clients while also gaining important client counseling and trial skills.
“His leadership at the N.C. Justice Center coupled with the fact he has been teaching at the law school for nearly three decades makes Rick the absolute perfect person to continue leading our students in this venture,” Leonard said. “His passion for helping those in need is unquestioned. His willingness to serve in this role will have an immense impact on our students as well as members of the community who find themselves in dire straits.”
Glazier, who has been teaching as an adjunct professor at Campbell Law since 1991, joined the Justice Center in the summer of 2015 following his resignation from the N.C. General Assembly after 13 years representing Cumberland County in the N.C. House of Representatives from 2003-2015. As a representative, Glazier served on the House judiciary, education, ethics and appropriations committees, among others.
Glazier will take the helm of the BCLC following the departure of former Director Ashley Campbell, who left in July to become CEO of North Carolina Legal Aid. Professor Emily Mistr, who came to the clinic in January 2021 through a partnership with the N.C. Justice Center, has been acting as the clinic’s interim director.
Mistr serves as a bridge between the N.C. Justice Center’s Fair Chance Criminal Justice Project and the Community Law Clinic, where she helps law students assist formerly justice-involved individuals, primarily in the areas of expunction and driver’s license restoration.
“I want to thank Emily for all of her efforts in keeping the clinic running successfully as interim director,” Leonard said.
The N.C. Justice Center is a 50-person policy and advocacy non-profit organization based in Raleigh, one of the largest and most comprehensive in the southeastern United States, focused on anti-poverty work on issues of education, immigration, health care, housing, workers’ rights, consumer law and budget and tax policy.
In 2020, then Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court Cheri Beasley appointed Glazier to a second term on both the Chief Justice’s Equal Access to Justice Commission and the North Carolina Actual Innocence Inquiry Commission both ending on Dec. 31. Glazier was the prime sponsor of the bill that created the Actual Innocence Inquiry Commission in 2007 while serving Cumberland County in the N.C. House of Representatives.
He has received numerous Legislator of the Year Awards, including receiving the North Carolina Bar Association 2012 Citizen Lawyer Award and in 2015 being awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by then Gov. Pat McCrory.
Glazier is also a past member of the Cumberland County Board of Education serving from 1996-2002 and serving as chairman of that board for two years. He later served as a member of the North Carolina Public School Forum Board of Directors and is a recognized state and national conference speaker on issues of public education finance and governance.
While at Campbell Law, Glazier has taught a variety of courses including pre-trial civil litigation, trial and appellate advocacy and a course on legislative policy-making and ethics. He also served as a visiting professor in criminal justice at Fayetteville State University from 2006-2015, teaching undergraduate courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, juvenile law and criminal evidence. In addition, Rick previously taught courses in criminal law for Fayetteville Technical Community College and North Carolina State University.
Glazier is past president of Beth Israel Synagogue in Fayetteville, past member of the UNC Center for Public Television Board of Trustees, and past board member of the Women’s Center of Fayetteville, Fayetteville Urban Ministry and the Child Advocacy Center. Professionally, he also served for years on the Board of Governors of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers (the predecessor to the N.C. Advocates for Justice).
Glazier earned his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1981 and his undergraduate degree from Penn State University in 1977.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,700 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2021, Campbell Law celebrated 45 years of graduating legal leaders and 12 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.
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