Judge Wanda G. Bryant is a native of Brunswick County, NC. Judge Bryant graduated in three years from Duke University in 1977 with a degree in History and Comparative Area Studies. She also attended Oxford University in England. In 1982, she earned her law degree at North Carolina Central University. In 1983, Judge Bryant made history when she became the first AfricanAmerican and first female prosecutor for the 13th Prosecutorial District in North Carolina. As an Assistant District Attorney, she served the coastal counties of Bladen, Brunswick, and Columbus. Her experience as an Assistant D.A. in her own hometown helped shape her unbiased approach to the justice system and develop a strong sense of fairness and justice.
Beginning in 1989, Judge Bryant served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia where she focused on the prosecution of child and adult sexual assault cases, earning a Special Achievement Award for her distinguished work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judge Bryant returned to North Carolina to head then-Attorney General Mike Easley’s newly created Citizens Rights Division. Under her leadership, the Division opened the first ever Sunshine Office, providing access to public records and open meetings. Her Division also worked with citizens and communities to address consumer protection issues, child abuse, elder abuse, hate crimes, and safe neighborhood initiatives. In February 2001, Governor Easley appointed her as a Judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and she was reappointed in December 2002. Judge Bryant ran successful judicial election campaigns in 2004 and 2012. As a result, she has served for more than eighteen years on the Court of Appeals, where she is now second in seniority. Judge Bryant and her husband, Ronald Steven Douglas, Assistant Dean at North Carolina Central University School of Law, have two children and three grandchildren. 36 | NCCU SCHOOL OF LAW • OF COUNSEL MAGAZINE
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ommencement exercises for the School of Law were held on Saturday, May 11th at King’s Park International Church, Durham, NC. The speaker for the Law School ceremony was the Honorable Judge Wanda D. Bryant, North Carolina Court of Appeals. In her commencement address, Judge Bryant emphasized the certification of an academic rigor education is a signal to the people of the world that graduates have been exposed to and the understand the legal principles which structure to the transactions to the country, both social and business. She also stressed that success on taking the bar examinations will qualify the graduates to represent the right of people in legal contests and transactions. As NCCU lawyers with years of rigorous training, Judge Bryant noted NCCU graduates leave campus with “exceptional powers of analysis, expression, and persuasion.” In conclusion, Bryant wished for NCCU’s newest class of lawyers “the satisfaction of serving that high calling and of pursuing the highest ideals of law and justice.” She encouraged our lawyers to go out and fly like the Eagles that have trained to be. We are extremely honored to welcome 2019 graduates to the Legal Eagle Family, and express our warmest congratulations to them.
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