Although Wilmington city attorney Carolyn Johnson has never worked for another female city attorney, she is one of a growing number of full-time city attorneys in North Carolina who are women. According to the North Carolina Association of Municipal Attorneys, six out of the state’s 20 full-time city attorneys are women. They serve as chief counsel for municipalities from Hickory to Wilmington.

“I haven’t been in the first chair long enough to know if being a  woman makes a difference or if  I’m just employing good principles, hopefully good principles, on how to manage the legal affairs of a city,” Johnson said. She is Wilmington’s first female city attorney, according to the city’s most current historical records.

But for Johnson, the Port City has always been home and a place that fostered her civic engagement. From first to fifth grade, she attended segregated schools in Wilmington. Watching friends and family members board busses in Wilmington bound for the March on Washington and going to school while the New Hanover County school system transitioned from being predominantly segregated to schools of choice to becoming fully desegregated are some of her most vivid memories of democracy in action.

“I saw law and judicial pronouncements as ways that a lot of things that we consider positive change had happened. I was fascinated by that. In about the ninth grade, I decided to become a lawyer,” she said. She graduated from New Hanover High School in 1976 before receiving her degree in political science at UNC Chapel Hill and her law degree from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

Today in Wilmington she oversees a staff of seven – three assistant city attorneys, two paralegals and two administrative assistants.

They  primarily provide day-to-day legal support for city staff and city  council. But in mid-June, Johnson will represent the city in an anti-annexation lawsuit. City council adopted an annexation ordinance  for Monkey Junction in May 2009. Petitioners in the annexation area have filed a lawsuit to challenge it. The plaintiffs include one corporate client and about four or five named individuals, Johnson said. The case will be heard in New Hanover County Superior Court.

“I think we have a slam dunk  case so I think it should be quick.  If it were to go to full trial I think it will [last] a day or a day and a half,” she said.

For the most part, her job does not bring her into the courtroom. Her office is not litigation-heavy, because a lot of issues involving city ordinances and codes are resolved through appeal processes, she said.  “I think we’re not here to litigate against the citizens for the most part. We’re here to handle the city’s business,” she said.

One piece of business coming down the pike is a potential zoning regulation on Internet sweepstakes operations in Wilmington, she said. About two years ago Internet sweepstakes operators in Guilford and Wake Counties won an injunction that has led to sweepstakes establishments popping up around the state, she said. A staff member from the city attorney’s office will work with the planning department on any future text amendments.

Before returning to Wilmington  as the city attorney in November, she most recently served as the general counsel for the North Carolina Turnpike Authority. She has also been the senior assistant city attorney of Charlotte.

Johnson said she likes to take a  full look at issues and cases, which includes arguments for the other side.

“What I like to do as I practice law is to understand that it can be argued two different ways. If you had everyone in agreement, you wouldn’t need lawyers,” she said.

“To say if there’s a perspective  that gender brings to it, I do think women are more likely to look at it holistically and from the broader view sometimes than just taking a position and sticking with it and  closing off,” she said.

Choosing the broader view has its strategic advantages. “If I can refute the argument on the other side, then I’m very well prepared,” she said.

The dynamic nature of a city is one of the things she enjoys most about her job. “A lot of things stay constant. Purchasing is purchasing is purchasing. But whether it’s the hotel issue or the annexation issue, there’s always going to be some hot button issue that the city is going to be engaged in, and I like things that aren’t static,” she said.