Senior Lawyers Division Welcomes T.C. Homesley of Statesville into NCBA Legal Practice Hall of Fame

On September 14, 2023, Troy C. Homesley, Jr. ("T.C. Homesley"), the father of Clifton W. Homesley, was inducted into the North Carolina Bar Association Legal Practice Hall of Fame. The ceremony for the 35th induction class of the NCBA took place at the Waynesville Inn & Golf Club during a fall meeting of the Senior Lawyers Division.

T.C. Homesley, 88, was also celebrated and honored during a special session of the Iredell County Superior Court on October 26, 2023, at the Iredell County Hall of Justice in Statesville. Among the attendees were his son, Cliff; his daughter, Blair Homesley Hawley; his former legal assistant, Vonnie Collins; and countless other friends, colleagues, and partners in the legal profession.

The special guests in attendance who spoke at T.C. Homesley's celebration at the Iredell County Hall of Justice were the Hon. Joseph Crosswhite, the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge in Iredell County; the Hon. Richard Doughton; the Hon. Preston Cornelius; and the Hon. L. Dale Graham, Chief District Court Judge of Iredell and Alexander Counties. Each recalled fond memories and stories of T.C. Kevin C. Donaldson of Jones, Childers, Donaldson & Webb, PLLC also spoke of his partnership with T.C. Homesley after becoming his associate.

"T.C. Homesley was a little scary," said Mr. Donaldson, who graduated from Campbell University School of Law in 1992 and worked with him as a law partner in Statesville.

T.C. Homesley moved to the Town of Mooresville and opened the law office of Collier, Harris and Collier in 1962, practicing law for 60 years as a trial lawyer after graduating from the University of North Carolina School of Law. He was an undergraduate student at Chapel Hill. After graduating from law school in 1958, he served in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps as a Captain before he was honorably discharged in 1962 after serving the military in Bremerhaven, West German.

From the beginning in 1957, when he was first licensed by the North Carolina State Bar, T.C. Homesley embarked upon a 60-year legal career of service to the profession, his community, and his family in Iredell County. Collier, Harris and Collier became Homesley, Jones, Gaines and Dixon in 1972, and then later Homesley, Gaines, Dudley and Clodfelter. From the 1970s onward, T.C. Homesley was a trial lawyer who became well known in the General Court of Justice once Iredell County Superior Court and District Court were consolidated in 1966 and the Court of Appeals of North Carolina was created by law in 1967.

In the uniform courts of North Carolina, T.C. Homesley was known for his candid, frank demeanor and his down-to-earth sense of humor. Judges at the courthouse knew him as a litigator and a general practitioner. In both the District Court and Superior Court of Iredell County, T.C. Homesley was famous for the criminal and civil cases he would try, though he also knew how to plot metes and bounds by hand, how to practice real estate, how to probate a decedent's will, how to administer trusts and estates, and how to draft contracts, leases, and deeds.

"He was a lawyer's lawyer from the 1970s," said John A. Hauser, an Assistant Public Defender for Forsyth County. "They were all about service. He was one of those lawyers who was bigger than life."

Mr. Hauser, who knew T.C. Homesley from his days practicing law in Thomasville, said he and T.C. were in the same judicial district that included Alexander, Davidson, Davie, and Iredell Counties. He recalled T.C. Homesley as one of many ex-military lawyers in the 1970s who served the county well and had a big personality in Statesville, North Carolina.

T.C. Homesley served as the District 22 Bar Association President, President of the Iredell County Bar Association, and Chairman of the American Red Cross Blood campaign chapter in Mooresville, North Carolina. He has four grandchildren, one of whom is a lawyer in New York City. His son, Cliff Homesley, is a lawyer who once practiced with his father, a veteran of Army JAG.

"Having observed my dad practice law over the years and watching his involvement in our community, I am driven to provide the same level of service to our clients and to our community," said the younger Homesley, who has taken the reins from T.C.

With three generations of attorneys, T.C. Homesley has passed the torch; but bigger and brighter things lie ahead.