Terri L. Gardner is a partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in its Raleigh office. She has extensive experience helping clients in corporate reorganizations, bankruptcies, workouts, and creditors’ rights. She has represented companies, partnerships, and individuals in successful "out of court" negotiations with creditors; represented debtors in numerous complex chapter 11 cases involving restaurants, hotels, apartments, textiles, telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, real estate, steel fabrication, construction and other industries; and represented creditors in all aspects of chapter 11 cases, including representation of creditors committees and secured creditors, and has initiated involuntary petitions.

She is a certified specialist in business bankruptcy law by both the North Carolina State Board of Legal Specialization and the American Board of Certification.

A member of the North Carolina Bar Association, Ms. Gardner is a past chair of the Bankruptcy Section (2000-2001). She was a member of the Board of Legal Specialization (2002-2008) and a past chair of the Bankruptcy Specialization Committee of the North Carolina State Bar.

Ms. Gardner was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Certification (2008-2010), is past president of the Wake County and Tenth Judicial District Bar Associations (2004), and is a former member of the Fee Arbitration Committee of the Tenth Judicial District.

As a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, Ms. Gardner chaired the Southeastern Bankruptcy Institute in 2006; served on the Advisory Panel of the ABI National Fee Study; and co-chaired the Ethics Committee from 2006-2009. She also is a member of the Turnaround Management Association; is a former Board Member of the Association of Certified Turnaround Professionals; a former panel trustee for the Raleigh Division, United States Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of North Carolina; and served on the Board of Visitors for the Wake Forest University School of Law.

Ms. Gardner was listed in Thomson Reuters' North Carolina "Super Lawyers" (Bankruptcy Law) in 2007-2012; is listed among Thomson Reuters' North Carolina "Top 50 North Carolina Women Lawyers," 2007-2012; and was recognized in Business North Carolina magazine’s "Legal Elite" in Bankruptcy, 2004-2009 and in the "Legal Elite Hall of Fame." Legal directory publisher Chambers and Partners has recognized her with its highest Tier 1 ranking for individual attorneys in Bankruptcy/Restructuring in its Chambers USA 2011 directory. She was chosen as a 2011 Business Woman Extraordinaire by Business Leader.

In 2008, Ms. Gardner received the James E. Cross, Jr., Leadership award from the Board of Legal Specialization of the North Carolina State Bar in recognition of her leadership as a Certified Bankruptcy Specialist.

She received the Outstanding Chapter Speaker Award from the North Carolina Association of CPAs in 2007 and is a frequent lecturer on bankruptcy law at state and national seminars.

A former law clerk to the Honorable Rufus W. Reynolds, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, Middle District of North Carolina, she formerly worked for another leading North Carolina law firm.

She earned her Juris Doctor in 1981 from Wake Forest School of Law, where she was a member of the Wake Forest Law Review. She earned a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Wake Forest University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa