Jim Cooney Receives Mecklenburg Bar Foundation’s Highest Honor

CHARLOTTE – Partner Jim Cooney was presented today with the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation’s Ayscue Professionalism Award. The award recognizes a member of the Mecklenburg County Bar for their outstanding service to the bar, legal community, and the community at large. 

“I am honored to receive this award.  The past recipients of this award have been giants in changing the legal system and society. I do not belong with them, but am honored to be with them,” Cooney said.

A litigator with nearly 40 years of civil and criminal law experience in both trial and appellate courts, Cooney is best known for fighting for clients in the most dire of situations. He spent three years working pro bono to free death row inmate Alan Gell, winning Gell his freedom in 2004 after proving his innocence by exposing suppressed evidence and presenting first-of-its-kind forensic evidence. As a result of the Gell case, North Carolina enacted the most extensive “open file” discovery law in the country, dramatically changing the way in which criminal cases operate.  In 2006 and 2007, while representing one of the accused in the Duke Lacrosse rape case, Cooney not only earned dismissal of charges against his client but he also exposed prosecutorial misconduct in the suppression of DNA evidence, misconduct that resulted in the removal and disbarment of the Durham County district attorney. And in 2016 Cooney once again turned his pro bono efforts to fighting for the wrongfully convicted, proving Darryl Howard did not murder a Durham woman and her daughter. Cooney worked with attorney Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project to free Howard after more than 20 years of wrongful imprisonment, and in the process secured a judicial finding that Howard was innocent of the murders. 
 

Cooney’s corporate clients receive the same level of dedication and passion for justice. He represented Duke Energy in a multi-jurisdiction grand jury investigation, the following civil litigation, and the related enforcement actions, regarding coal ash in North Carolina. He also represented Atrium Health in antitrust litigation brought by the U.S. and North Carolina Departments of Justice, which was followed by related class action litigation.

“I have had the good fortune to work with Jim Cooney for eight years and I have observed first hand that he exemplifies ethical standards, integrity, and competence,” said Womble Bond Dickinson Partner Russ Ferguson. “Jim is a tenacious advocate for his clients, focusing on the merits of the case instead of gaining tactical advantages, which has earned him the respect of many opposing counsel and our legal community at large. He has also been a giving mentor, supportive colleague, and invaluable leader for our firm.”

Cooney is a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers and a Permanent Member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference. He is consistently ranked by Chambers USA in Band 1 in North Carolina for Litigation: General Commercial and Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, where he was recently praised by sources as an “excellent lawyer.” He is also included in The Best Lawyers in America in the fields of “Bet-the-Company” Litigation, Commercial Litigation, and Criminal Defense White Collar Litigation. In 2004 he received the NC Bar Association’s William Thorp Pro Bono Award and in 2010, the Wade Smith Professionalism Award for Criminal Defense.