Mark A. Stafford is a partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP. A commercial litigator for more than two decades, he practices in the areas of business, financial services, construction and complex litigation, with a specific focus on arbitration and trials of consumer finance, shareholder, contractor-owner, employment, and computer technology disputes.

 

Mr. Stafford has served as lead outside counsel in numerous shareholder/partnership, contract, tax, trade secret, statutory and common law employment claims, and software performance disputes for a variety of industries, including financial institutions, technology companies, commercial property developers, and food, apparel, equipment, and furniture manufacturers. In addition to courts across North Carolina and within the Fourth Circuit, Mr. Stafford has appeared in complex arbitrations governed by the American Arbitration Association, JAMS/Endispute, American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA), the National Arbitration Forum, and international (Asian and European) commercial arbitration tribunals.

 

Mr. Stafford is a member of the North Carolina State Bar and is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Tax Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina. He is a member of the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association (Commercial and Business, Computer and Internet/Intellectual Property, and Business Tort Committees), the Litigation, Construction, and Employment Law Sections of the North Carolina Bar Association, and the North Carolina Association of Defense Attorneys.

 

Prior to joining Nelson Mullins in 2004, Mr. Stafford was a partner in another large Southeastern firm where he supervised a variety of complex litigation matters, including defense of mortgage lending class actions, antitrust, product liability disputes over construction materials, ERISA, ADEA, insurance coverage and securities litigation.

 

Mr. Stafford is a frequent lecturer on legal issues, including shareholder rights and remedies, partnership and agency law, business torts, evidence, and legal trends affecting small businesses. A former technical writer in the telecommunications industry, he recently completed service on the Editorial Board for the American Bar Association's Computer and Internet Litigation Journal. In 2012, he was selected by his peers to Thomson Reuters’ list of North Carolina Super Lawyers.

His past and present community involvement includes serving as Cubmaster of Pack 910 and Committee Chair of Troop 910 of the Boy Scouts of America (Old Hickory Council); president of the board of directors of the Association for the Benefit of Child Development; member, Advance Gifts Committee of the Ronald McDonald House of Winston-Salem; member, Rotary Club of Winston-Salem; graduate of Leadership Winston-Salem's Leadership Connections; coach for the Winston-Salem Nationals Little League; and as vestryman for St. Paul's Episcopal Church, one of the largest Anglican parishes within the Diocese of North Carolina.

 

In 1989, Mr. Stafford earned a Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of North Carolina School of Law where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the North Carolina Law Review and was named to the Order of the Coif. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, with honors, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1985.