Womble Carlyle Sandridge Rice

Dumping McGuire Woods in favor of Womble et al:

The company hoping to build a cement plant in New Hanover County has hired a new law firm to represent it as it trudges through the environmental permitting process.

Titan America recently hired Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC, which replaces John Merritt of McGuireWoods Consulting in Raleigh.

Which makes this as good at a time as any to remind legislators: SEPA is going to reveal some issues that have yet to be addressed, and you need to cast your net wide when seeking answers. Consider the source.

Many of the challenges we're facing here in North Carolina have been decades or longer in the making. Effective solutions will not come quickly, even when there is the political will for change. Environmental degradation over the last century will take decades to correct. Improving mental health care will require generous funding and commitment to rebuild the infrastructure and the confidence of caregivers. The toxic influence of free-market fundamentalism requires that we push back again and again and again.

But other challenges are not so deep-rooted. For example, the exponential growth of war-profiteering by the Blackwater mercenary army has been relatively recent.

It was many years ago when trial lawyer Dave Rudolf explained to me the importance of excellent representation for defendants charged with horrific crimes. Rudolf has taken on more than his share of those defendants, and the case he made for doing so is compelling. Not only is the right to defense clearly laid out in law, it is also morally correct. A happy coincidence.

Though I have big reservations about giving corporations the same rights we give individuals, I nonetheless accept that businesses charged with horrific crimes deserve representation too. It's the American way.

Which brings us to the relationships between two North Carolina companies, Reynolds American and Blackwater, and one of our state's leading law firms.