Paul Hendrick has been practicing law in Winston-Salem since 1975, specializing in the representation of business clients. He provides his clients with a broad range of commercial counseling and representation needs throughout the United States. He has handled all manner and size of business acquisitions, mergers and disputes. He has argued successfully before all North Carolina appellate courts and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
He is nationally recognized for his representation of minor league sports organizations. As general counsel to the ECHL (formerly East Coast Hockey League) since 1996. He was inducted into the ECHL Hall of Fame for his accomplishments. Mr. Hendrick has advised the ECHL on mergers and expansions that transformed the ECHL from a regional hockey league to one that stretches from Alaska to California to Florida with as many as thirty teams. He is general counsel to independent minor league baseball organizations that have operated in all parts of the United States and Canada.
As part of his representation of his sport’s clients, Mr. Hendrick successfully defended a league’s right to have its own dispute resolution procedures and the right of a league’s board of directors to serve as the arbitrators of league disputes in Canadian Am. Ass’n of Prof’l Baseball, Ltd. v. Ottawa Rapidz, 213 N.C. App. 15, 711 S.E.2d 834 (2011). He was represented NASCAR to defend its driver drug testing program in a high profile challenge and court case by one of NASCAR’s drivers.
He is a founding member of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Sports and Entertainment Law Section.
At Wake Forest, Mr. Hendrick was Justice of the Timberlake Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta in 1973. Timberlake Chapter was voted the most outstanding Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta in the United States in 1973. Mr. Hendrick was also an editor of the Wake Forest Law Review and authored “The Burden of Establishing Signature, Defenses, and Due Course”, 8 Wake Forest Law Review 119, and “Constitutionality of North Carolina Statute Concerning Possessory Liens On Personal Property”, 9 Wake Forest Law Review 97. The Law Review Comment challenged the constitutionality of North Carolina’s statutory lien law. In 1975, Chapter 44 of North Carolina General Statutes was ruled unconstitutional.
Mr. Hendrick served as a law clerk to Judge Hiram H. Ward, U.S. District Judge, the Middle District of North Carolina, from 1973 until 1975. He served as a clinical adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Law from 1982 until 1984. Mr. Hendrick is a member of the Forsyth County, North Carolina and American Bar Associations.
