Janet Ward’s Story

As you visit our website and learn more about Ward Black Law, I hope that you see a team of people who “seek justice, give generously, and love lavishly.” Seeking justice and fighting for the rights of everyday people is our life’s work. But we are more than just that.

Ward Black Law embodies the values and beliefs I strive to attain every day. It’s a reflection of who I am. To understand the values and beliefs of the firm, you need to understand more about me as a person.

My parents came from humble beginnings. My mother taught high school English at Concord High School, which I attended. Mother was born on a tobacco farm in Mount Olive, North Carolina (the home of Mt. Olive Pickles).

My father was an entrepreneur. Dad was born in Marshville, North Carolina, the son of the owner of the general store. When the Depression hit in 1929, my father and his sisters moved to Washington, DC, because there were no jobs in the little town in which they lived. My dad got a job at People’s Drugs as a stock boy and clerk. That experience shaped him and eventually me. My father returned to North Carolina in the 1940s where he and a brother started a pharmacy in Kannapolis. From there, he developed a small chain of pharmacies called Baxter’s, and would eventually open additional pharmacies in Concord, Kannapolis, and Hickory.

I am a product of my upbringing. I was born in Kannapolis, a North Carolina textile mill town, where my father started his first pharmacy.

He didn’t believe in borrowing money. He taught me to save money. In fact, for years, he would drive the first day of every month to deposit $100 in the Landis Savings and Loan for my college fund. He never missed a month from the time I was born until my first day at Davidson College. I still have the “passbooks” in which his deposits were logged. He never got a chance to go to college, so it was really important to him that I did.

I am the child of an entrepreneur. That, I think, has allowed me to embrace, albeit somewhat reluctantly, the role of a business owner and employer. I have been a small business owner with about two dozen employees for more than 15 years– the business just happens to be a law firm.

While my entrepreneurial spirit came from my father, my mother’s background in English taught me discipline. Most of my mother’s relatives were teachers or school principals in eastern North Carolina. That heritage taught me to be a critical proofreader of almost everything I see, and, I hope, to be a decent public speaker and teacher. I have had spoken to audiences totaling thousands of people- including students, lawyers, and business owners. The last thing I wanted to do when I attended Duke Law School was to be a person who tries cases in court or speaks in public, but God had other plans. It is now one of the great joys of my life.

I was raised in church. If the doors were open, I was there! When I was about 40 years old, I attended a three-day spiritual retreat called Presbyterian Pilgrimage and started taking international mission trips. Serving God through missions work changed my perspective of “church.”

I started serving on medical missions in Nicaragua and El Salvador with Mercy Mission teams (a Greensboro-based organization). I have served for several years on construction teams building houses with Habitat for Humanity in Honduras. Almost every year since that retreat, I have traveled to another country on a mission trip.
My most recent mission trips have been to China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, Lesotho, and Vietnam with International Cooperating Ministries.

ICM is a Christian non-profit that funds church buildings and discipleship material in over 100 countries for indigenous pastors who have sizable congregations, but no building in which to worship (www.icm.org). I’ve been exposed to the beauty of people and places across the globe. Being placed in the circumstances and surroundings of many different cultures opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know existed. Serving those unique communities altered my worldview and elevated missions to a high priority in my life.

My walk with God has strengthened over the years. While I considered myself a Christian my whole life, I don’t think I really “got it” until more recently. In 2006, I joined C12, a national organization for Christian CEOs and business owners (www.c12group.com). I invest one day each month in meetings with C12. Over the years, a number of our lawyers and our leadership staff have become members of their own C12 group, called “Key Players.” We each dedicate that one day a month, as a unified force, to making Ward Black Law a better business and a better ministry.

My beliefs not only shape how I represent clients, but how I manage our law firm. I believe that representing clients, each a unique creation of God, is a true honor and responsibility. To take advantage of a client, mislead a client, or fail to use our very best efforts to represent our clients is wrong. Honor and integrity in our business dealings are fundamental to our practice.

Taking care of our employees is taking care of our clients. Our employees are entrusted to us by God – the more we care for them, the more love they can share with the clients we serve. By bettering our employees, we better the business of serving others. We strive to provide continuing education, to challenge them with responsibility, and to provide a flexible, comfortable and nurturing workplace that includes a robust paid benefits and time off package. Many have worked for us for more than 20 years. I would like to think their length of service is evidence of the environment we have created at Ward Black Law.

Not only do we invest in staff training, but we also invest in our staff’s spiritual growth. We offer to fund an international mission trip to any staff or lawyer wishing to participate. Members of our staff have worked on medical missions in Nicaragua and many have built houses with Habitat for Humanity in Honduras. We want our staff to understand how vast the world is and to see the beauty in other people and places. A staff that understands cultures different from their own is a staff that can empathize with others.

Our staff and lawyers give back to our community. We love our “neighbors,” both near and far. For over 10 years, we have partnered with the Marine Corps to collect toys for needy children in the Triad. We have a prayer team that prays for our employees, our clients, our work, and our philanthropy for 6 hours the first Thursday of each month.

In 2013 we started setting aside 10% of all we earn – our gross revenue – which we donate to best-in-class nonprofits, locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. That “dime on every dollar” has been donated to more than 150 non-profits that serve the hungry, thirsty, sick, jailed, naked, strangers of Matthew 25:36-40 and the widows and orphans of Deuteronomy 24:19. We don’t allow the non-profits to publicize that donation. We ask that they keep it anonymous. We want God to get the glory, not our firm. Originally, we thought we would be blessing others, but we quickly learned that we are the ones blessed by our giving.

Claiming to be a “Christian-led law firm” is a sacred responsibility. I can’t conduct myself in a way that is an affront to God. I have to encourage our staff to always do the right thing, even when it hurts. As a Christian business owner, I have to be willing to sacrifice and fight for our staff and our clients.

I know that all the honors I’ve received are not the result of my deserving them or being the best and brightest, but because God has a plan for my life. I try to be faithful in following God’s plan. It takes service to our fellow man, including clients, and sacrifice of time, talent, and money. It takes courage and faith. It is full of challenges and disappointments, but it is also blessed with victories.

As long as I serve as a good steward of all that God has entrusted to me – clients, employees, talents, time, money, family, friends – with His help, I will accomplish what He wants me to do for our clients and our staff. He is the source of my hope, my peace, and my purpose.

Justice is God’s idea and that’s what we seek. Our mission statement: “seek justice, give generously, love lavishly” summarizes what we strive to do for ourselves, our clients, and our community whether they are next door or on the other side of the world.

Isaiah 41:10 is my favorite verse: “Fear not, for I am with you. Be not afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.” We, God’s people, are called to seek justice and be fearless because He is with us. He holds us up. He will not leave us or forsake us. He loves us – and that means me, and you. He loves the whole world.

Owning and operating Ward Black Law is God’s plan for me. The firm is just a reflection of His plan.