Morehead-Cain Foundation Names Robinson Bradshaw Attorneys to Chair and General Counsel

For the first time in its history, the Morehead-Cain Foundation board of trustees will be chaired by someone outside the family. Robinson Bradshaw attorney David C. Wright III will serve as chairman beginning July 1, and Pearlynn G. Houck, a litigator with Robinson Bradshaw, has succeeded Wright as general counsel.

Wright will replace Lucy Hanes Chatham, who is stepping down after 10 years as chair. Her grandfather, John Lindsay Morehead II, was a founding trustee of the John Motley Morehead Foundation. Wright served as the board’s general counsel from 2009 to 2015 before being elected a trustee last year.

“I am honored to serve as chair of the Morehead-Cain Foundation board,” Wright said. “As a Morehead Scholar in the class of 1980, this program personally means a lot to me. I’m excited about continuing the great work of the Foundation and its unwavering commitment to invest in UNC-Chapel Hill.”

At Robinson Bradshaw, Wright has represented companies, public officials and executives in a wide variety of business and constitutional disputes for more than 30 years. For the past decade, Wright has been featured in The Best Lawyers in America©, and he has been named a Top 100 North Carolina Super Lawyer since 2009. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia as Order of the Coif, and he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors and as a Phi Beta Kappa inductee.

Houck advises companies and executives in complex business and employment disputes and bet-the-company litigation. She has been named a Rising Star in business litigation by North Carolina Super Lawyers since 2013, and she was recognized in 2015 as one of Charlotte Business Journal’s Forty Under 40. Houck earned her law degree from Harvard Law School after receiving her bachelor’s degree with high honors from the University of Montana.

The Morehead-Cain Foundation carries on the legacy of the first merit scholarship program created in the United States. Established in 1945, the scholarship provides a fully funded opportunity to attend UNC-Chapel Hill as an undergraduate student.

Robinson Bradshaw has deep ties to the Morehead-Cain Foundation. Firm co-founder Russell M. Robinson II was named general counsel in 1965 and served for 42 years, and three of the firm’s attorneys have since served in that role. Robinson Bradshaw currently has eight Morehead scholars serving as lawyers in the firm.