Business North Carolina Magazine

January 2005

For Immediate Release

O. Max Gardner III of Shelby has been named one of the top bankruptcy lawyers in North Carolina in a recent poll conducted by Business North Carolina, a state-wide publication. The announcement was made in the January 2005 Edition of the magazine. Lawyers elected Gardner as one of the very best of all of the lawyers in North Carolina who practice bankruptcy law.

Business North Carolina mailed 16,866 ballots last spring to every lawyer licensed by the North Carolina State Bar and living in North Carolina. They were asked a simple question: "Of the North Carolina lawyers whose work you have observed firsthand, whom would you rate among the current best?" Ballots included spaces for names in 12 fields closely related to business and banking matters. The only prohibitions: Voters could not pick themselves and could only select members of their own firms if they also voted for out-of-firm lawyers in the same categories. Nearly 1,600 of North Carolina's 16,866 lawyers received votes. So how elite is the Elite? Only 2.6% of the state's lawyers made it. And, Gardner was one of just 21 lawyers included in list of Business North Carolina's Legal Bankruptcy Elite.

Gardner received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969 and graduated with High Honors from the UNC School of Law in 1974 where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. Following graduation, he served as law clerk to the Hon. William H. Bobbitt, the late Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and later as a law clerk to the late Associate Justice J. William Copeland. He worked as an Associate Attorney for Smith Moore in Greensboro for approximately 3 years following his clerkships.

Gardner opened his own consumer bankruptcy practice in Shelby in 1979. He is well known for his aggressive representation of consumer debtors. During the last few years, he has been involved in a number of class action cases against national mortgage servicers and trustees of mortgage-backed securities. He recently received national attention when he secured a $2.2 million dollar settlement for the former Employees of the Shelby Yarn Company. In that case, Gardner represented the 650 former employees who successfully filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy case Shelby Yarn. The unique nature of this litigation and the fact that the employees successfully sued management has been the subject of numerous articles in all of the major trade, business and financial publications and in the national media.

Mr. Gardner has also received national recognition for his unparalleled success in pursuing violations of the automatic stay, the discharge injunction, predatory lending practices, predatory mortgage servicing practices, and non-bankruptcy federal and state consumer protection statutes. He is a long-time member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and has been a frequent speaker and lecturer on bankruptcy law and consumer representation throughout the United States. He was recognized in April of 2004 as the Consumer Champion of the Year at the Annual meeting of National Association in Boston.

Gardner is the Grandson of former North Carolina Governor and Ambassador to Great Britain, O. Max Gardner, and is the Grandnephew of another former North Carolina Governor and United States Senator, Clyde R. Hoey. Gardner and his wife, Victoria, currently reside near Casar, North Carolina, at Lizmere, a farm thay own in the South Mountains. He is the Father of three children, Max IV, Webb and Sarah and has two Grandsons, Oliver and Nathan. Max and his wife raise King Charles Cavalier Spaniels at Lizmere and sell their puppies throughout the world.

End of Release