Having always had a passion for law, Alison Y. Ashe-Card, Esq., began her studies at Spelman College, where she graduated, magna cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1989. Going on to earn a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Washington College of Law at American University in 1992, she was licensed to practice law by the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar and embarked on her career as a staff attorney for Legal Aid Chicago that same year. Remaining with Legal Aid Chicago until 1997, she spent 1998 as a part-time instructor at Forsyth Technical Community College. From 1999 to 2001, Ms. Ashe-Card served as an adjunct professor at Winston-Salem State University and was admitted before the North Carolina State Bar in 2000.
Furthermore, Ms. Ashe-Card joined the firm of Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice PLLC, now known as Womble Bond Dickinson following a merger in 2017, in 1999. She spent over a decade with the firm until she returned to teaching in 2013. In 2013, she joined the School of Law at Wake Forest University as the assistant director for the Office of Career and Professional Development and became the associate director for diversity and inclusion at the law school in 2019. To compliment her administrative positions, Ms. Ashe-Card has obtained certification as an intercultural development inventory qualified administrator from IDI, LLC and in diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace through the University of South Florida’s corporate training and professional education program.
Holding considerable expertise in diversity and inclusion as well as in litigation, Ms. Ashe-Card’s duties in her position at Wake Forest include counseling law students and graduates on their career path, teaching professional development courses, and managing diversity and inclusion programming efforts for the law school. Over the course of her career, she has also presented at a variety of diversity, equity and inclusion workshops; authored several articles for the National Association for Law Placement Bulletin on diversifying the legal profession; and provided a variety of pro bono legal services. Since 2021, she has served on the board of governors for the North Carolina Bar Foundation, as a Lawyer on the Line volunteer for the North Carolina Bar Association, and as the board director for the National Association for Law Placement. Moving forward, Ms. Ashe-Card hopes to dedicate even more time and effort to supporting the diversification of the legal profession.
An elected fellow of the American Bar Association, Ms. Ashe-Card attributes much of her success to her involvement in community endeavors alongside her professional ones. She has lived her life by the words of Marian Wright Edelman, “Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.” To that end, she currently serves on the boards of directors for the Piedmont Federal Savings Bank, the Novant Health Clemmons Medical Center Foundation and the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership; on the executive committee of The Links, Incorporated; and is a board member of the Winston-Salem Foundation, an institutional review board member for Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, and a member of the board of management for the Jerry Long Family YMCA. Ms. Ashe-Card has previously been involved with the Winston-Salem Urban League, Experiment in Self-Reliance, Inc., the United Way of Forsyth County, and more.
For her excellence, Ms. Ashe-Card was named to the Top 100 Lawyers in North Carolina by the National Black Lawyers in 2021. She has also been recognized on three occasions by the North Carolina Pro Bono Resource Center with induction into the North Carolina Pro Bono Honor Society for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. Earlier, she received the Citizen Lawyer Award from the North Carolina Bar Association, followed by a certificate of excellence in 2014; the Black Achievers in Business and Industry Award from the YMCA in 2003; and was named to the 40 Leaders Under 40 list by the Triad Business Journal in 2006. Above all these accolades, Ms. Ashe-Card is most proud of having been presented with the Lifetime Community Service Award from the Defense Research Institute in 2021, making her the first attorney in North Carolina to receive the honor.