Mark W. Merritt Selected 2012 Recipient of H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award by North Carolina Bar Association

Mark W. Merritt, an attorney with Robinson Bradshaw, has been selected as the 2012 recipient of the H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award by the North Carolina Bar Association. The award will be presented at the bar’s annual meeting in Wilmington in June.

The McKnight Award recognizes attorneys of integrity and intellectual achievement who also are committed to civility and pursue excellence and service. The award is named in memory of Judge H. Brent McKnight, who served on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

Merritt has been very involved in the state and county bars. He is currently a councilor of the North Carolina State Bar, chair of the the state bar’s Lawyers Assistance Program, and past chair of the state bar’s Ethics Committee. He has chaired the North Carolina Bar Association’s Antitrust and Trade Regulation Section and served as president and treasurer of the Mecklenburg County Bar.

Merritt has also been active in his community, serving as senior warden of Christ Episcopal Church, president of The Family Center and president of Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont, among other community involvements.

Merritt’s practice at Robinson Bradshaw covers a broad range of business-related litigation, including antitrust litigation and counseling, complex and class action litigation, and securities litigation. He regularly represents clients in governmental investigations, including investigations conducted by federal antitrust agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission and self-regulatory organizations. He also assists corporate clients in conducting investigations into internal accounting and financial irregularities.

Merritt is regularly selected for inclusion in leading legal directories, including The Best Lawyers in America (which named him the Charlotte Bet-the-Company Litigation Lawyer of the Year and the Charlotte Litigation – Securities Lawyer of the Year in 2012), Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite (which has named him to its Legal Elite Hall of Fame in antitrust and litigation), North Carolina Super Lawyers (which has recognized him as one of the top 10 business litigation attorneys in North Carolina each year since 2008), Benchmark Litigation and Chambers USA, America’s Leading Business Lawyers. He is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Merritt earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and editor-in-chief of the Virginia Law Review. He received his bachelor of arts from University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.