Roger L. Dillard, Jr., of counsel

Roger L. Dillard, Jr. joined the firm as a founding partner in 1995 along with Barbara E. Ruark and Maureen T. Orbock (retired).  Mr. Dillard has practiced primarily in the area of workers’ compensation defense since that time.  He has extensive experience defending all types of workers’ compensation cases, including asbestos and other complex occupational disease cases.  

Prior to helping create the firm in 1995, Mr. Dillard actually adjudicated numerous workers’ compensation cases as a Deputy Commissioner with the North Carolina Industrial Commission from 1990 to 1995.  One of the cases Mr. Dillard heard and ruled on as a Deputy Commissioner ended up being a landmark case on proof of disability in North Carolina workers' compensation law, Russell v. Lowe's Product Distribution, 108 N.C. App. 762, 425 S.E.2d 454 (1993).                 

Before beginning his tenure with the Industrial Commission as a Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Dillard was a general practitioner for eighteen years in Sylva, North Carolina.  He had also served as County Attorney for Graham and Swain Counties; as counsel for the Swain County Board of Education; as a member of the North Carolina State Banking Commission; and as a trust officer at the Birmingham Trust National Bank in Birmingham, Alabama.

Mr. Dillard received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1967 and graduated from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama in 1972.  He is currently a member of the North Carolina State Bar, the North Carolina Bar Association and its Workers’ Compensation Section, and the Forsyth County Bar Association.  He is also admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and in the United States District Court for the Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina.

Roger is an avid fisherman and he  enjoys collegiate and professional sports.