With 30 years’ experience, Sally is a skilled and strategic advocate with extensive experience in state and federal courts as well as arbitration. She focuses on solving the complex legal issues the firm’s clients face from an ever-practical perspective and through legal strategy that always keeps clients’ personal and business goals at its core.

She has been a certified mediator for 17 years, and her mediation practice incorporates the deep experience developed in her litigation practice, enhanced by lessons learned from many hundreds of cases she has mediated as a neutral and an advocate.

Likewise, as an arbitrator Sally draws on the many arbitrations she has handled as an advocate and a neutral, and works to achieve the practical efficiencies possible in dispute resolution outside the courtroom.

Experience

2022–Present Commercial Arbitration Panel, American Arbitration Association

2008–Present Higgins & Owens, PLLC (formerly Higgins Law Firm, PLLC)

1996–2008 Kennedy, Covington, Lobdell & Hickman, LLP (later merged with K&L Gates) (partner and associate)

1995–1996 Law Clerk to the Honorable Sam J. Ervin, III, then-Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

 

Education

University of North Carolina, J.D., with high honors, 1995 (NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW, Executive Articles Editor; Order of the Coif; Walter Clark Award (presented to top five students in graduating class))

Duke University, B.A., cum laude, English, 1990

 

Awards and Recognitions

• Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America (2015–present)

• Top 100 North Carolina Super Lawyers List (multiple years, including 2024)

• Top 50 Women North Carolina Super Lawyers List (multiple years, including 2025)

• Rated “AV Preeminent” by Martindale Hubbell Peer Review Ratings

• Named Charlotte Litigation — Bet-the-Company Litigation Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers (2023)

• Named Charlotte Litigation—Real Estate Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers (2012, 2014 and 2021)

• Listed in BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA’s Legal Elite for Business Litigation (multiple years)

• Listed in The Best Lawyers in America in Commercial Litigation, Litigation—Real Estate and Litigation—Securities (multiple years including 2024)

• Included in Super Lawyers in Business Litigation (multiple years including 2025)

• Included in Benchmark Litigation’s Top 250 Women in U.S. Litigation (multiple years)

• Named by Benchmark Litigation as a Litigation Star for North Carolina (multiple years)

 

Selected Presentations and Writing

• Author, “Fraud: North Carolina” for Thomson Reuters Practical Law, published 2023 published 2023

• Speaker, “Litigating Chapter 75 Claims in the North Carolina Business Court” (10th Annual NC Business Court CLE, 2022)

• Speaker, “Business Breakups Before and After Landing in Business Court” (6th Annual NC Business Court CLE, 2018)

• Speaker, “Pre-Trial and Trial Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Personalities” (All-Star Trial Advocacy presented by Mecklenburg County Bar, 2016)

 

Selected Community Involvement

• Access to Justice, Co-Chair, 2017–18 Campaign

• Member of Committee to Revise Local Rules of Practice for the North Carolina Business Court (2015–16)

• Member of Committee to Revise 26th Judicial District Superior Court Division Civil Rules (2014–15)

• Myers Park High School Foundation, Board of Directors (2014-2020), President (2016–2019)

• Women Presidents Organization, Charlotte Chapter (2004–17)

• Tosco Music Party, Board of Directors (2014–2018)

• Arts+ (formerly Community School of the Arts) Campaign Committee (2024-present), Board of Directors (2004-2010)