North Carolina Is Home. Now Barrett & Farahany Is Here Too.

I’ll be upfront: I’m not a lawyer. I’m the COO of a plaintiff’s employment law firm, which means I keep the engine running so our attorneys can do the actual fighting. Launching our North Carolina presence in January 2026 was one of the highlights of my career, and I say that as someone who has called this state home for over a decade.

Roots, Real Ones

My connection to North Carolina runs a lot deeper than Chapel Hill. My father grew up in Tunis, a small village outside of Winton in Hertford County, fishing the Chowan River. My mother is from Aulander, just across the line in Bertie County. They were high school sweethearts, and the northeastern corner of this state quiet, unhurried, and deeply underestimated is woven into who I am.  If you are a Terry, Taylor, Bradley, or Rawls from the area, we are likely related.  

I also make an exceptionally good Eastern NC BBQ that my grandmother would have been proud of, which in this part of the world, and my family, is not a small claim.

My Journey Back

My husband and I lived in Southern Virginia for years for his job before deciding our daughter deserved a better educational environment heading into middle school. We had a condo in Chapel Hill, we were die-hard UNC Tar Heel fans, and honestly the decision wasn’t that hard. Part-time from 2014, full-time by 2018. 

Now she’s graduating and heading to Elon University to study business, one more NC thread in a life that has become defined by this state. I want her early career to look nothing like mine did. I want her to know her rights before she needs them.

I joined the RDU legal community in January 2019 at a local plaintiff’s employment firm as the start of my third career. I’ve been a member of the Raleigh-Durham Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators since early 2020. 

In August 2023, I stepped into the COO role at Barrett & Farahany, which is headquartered in Atlanta. North Carolina has been my professional home the whole time. Now it’s the firm’s too.

Why I Actually Care About This Work

My first career, ages 15 to 37, was in the automotive industry. Started at a dealership putting myself through college: bookkeeping, reception, admin, whatever needed doing. Moved into software implementation and training with ADP Dealer Services, then into sales, including time with Ford. A career built one rung at a time.

It was also a male-dominated industry, and I experienced gender discrimination and sexual harassment firsthand. I know what it costs to calculate whether speaking up is worth the risk. Nobody should have to do that math. That’s why I care, not abstractly, but personally, about what Barrett & Farahany does for the people who walk through our door.

My job is building the infrastructure that lets our legal team focus on those people: the processes, the technology, the systems that remove friction and create space for the work that actually matters. Their clients are my clients. Justice and closure is the whole point.

The Attorney Leading North Carolina: Katie Abernethy

Good news for North Carolina workers: we didn’t just hire anyone. Partner Kathryn “Katie” Abernethy is a North Carolina Board Certified Employment Law Specialist. That’s a credential from the NC State Bar that means something, not a badge you buy at a conference.

Twenty-five years of experience, starting on the defense side at major international firms (which means she knows exactly how employers build their cases) and then nearly a decade as a Partner doing plaintiff-side employment work in North Carolina. She’s a Super Lawyer in NC every year since 2022 and has been on WRAL and national outlets multiple times. Her practice covers the full landscape of what workers face — and she’s tried cases in state and federal courts across the country to prove it.

I’ve known Katie since January 2019, when I first entered the legal community here. She was already the real deal. Bringing her to Barrett & Farahany to lead this launch was an obvious call, not a difficult one.

The Full North Carolina Team

• Our Controller Rachel Foley and Managing Attorney Mitzi Motsinger both live in the NC mountains. 
• Our fractional CTO, Dakota Harbison of Harbison Consulting, is a Greensboro native now based in Cary. His fingerprints are on the technology infrastructure that keeps our operations running. 
• And our Founding Partner, Amanda Farahany, is a Charlotte native with family still in the area. Opening formally in North Carolina is, in a lot of ways, a homecoming for this firm.

We’re Statewide

The Triangle is home base, but we represent workers across North Carolina: 

• The Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point) 
• Charlotte 
• Wilmington 
• Asheville
• Everywhere in between 

Discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, wage theft: these don’t respect geography, and neither do we.

How We Work

The short version: we’re not a settlement factory, we take cases on contingency, and our attorneys are trial lawyers. If you want the full picture of who we are and how we operate, it’s all at justiceatwork.com/about-our-firm. 

If you’re a North Carolina worker who thinks your rights have been violated, we offer complimentary case reviews. That’s where the conversation starts.

This state has given my family a great deal. I’m glad we can give something back.