Community mourns loss of law legend, mentor to many

A time of mourning has befallen the legal world in Sampson County as many friends, family and colleagues are dealing with the loss of law pioneer Benjamin Raymond Warren, affectionately known by his grandsons as “Big Daddy,” his favorite moniker.

Warrick passed away surrounded by his family on Monday, Jan. 29, at ECU Health Duplin Hospital. He was 87.

Warrick was born July 3, 1936, in Johnston County to Lester Benjamin Warrick and Mavis Strickland Warrick. His family would move to Newport News, Va., following his father taking a job at a shipyard but returned to North Carolina when Warrick was 12. He’d remain here until graduating from Smithfield-Selma High School in 1954, where he went on to study Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

During high school he worked in a clothing store before attending UNC Chapel Hill. He’d return after only one year when the owners called for his aid as health problems afflicted the owners, practically running and managing the store for several years.

He’d eventually get a job working at Newark Airport in New Jersey after completing airline school in California where he moved to in December of 1955. Later taking a job with Slick Airways where he worked for approximately three years. During which he married his high school sweetheart, Pat, in 1957.

At the end of those three years, in March 1958, Warrick volunteered for the U.S. Armed Forces during the Korean War and was stationed at a missile site in Maryland. Completing his military service in 1961, he returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he completed both his bachelor’s degree in political science and his law degree.

On top of that achievement, while in law school, he was elected president of his law school class. Becoming a member of the founding committee of the Holderness Moot Court Competition — a competition that exists to this day.

It was in 1967 that his touted law career many knew him for would begin, eventually leading him to the firm still established and operating in Sampson County, Warrick and Bradshaw.

Warrick began law practice in Clinton in 1967 with attorneys Joe Chambliss and Clif Paderick. During that time he worked on a wide array of cases, everything from criminal cases with at least two murder trials, personal injury cases, bankruptcy, real estate and other areas of law. In the 1970s attorneys Dale P. Johnson and W. Douglas Parsons joined the practice. With the additional of Johnson and Parsons, focus shifted in different areas of practice.

During this period, Warrick began to focus in what was then considered to be the least lucrative area of law — family law.

He’d develop a thriving practice that eventually focused on family law, estate administration, estate planning and real estate transactions. Then, in the 1990s, Warrick established a separate law firm that eventually became the current iteration of Warrick and Bradshaw, P.A. Other attorneys who worked under his tutelage were Corinne A. Railey, Shurley Ray McCullen Weddle, Justin Lockamy and Frank L. Bradshaw.

Bradshaw is the other half of the Warrick and Bradshaw name. After several years on mentoring Bradshaw, Warrick confidently transitioned to a “part-time” and “semi-retired” attorney. Warrick still came in from time to time and continue to work until his full retirement in 2022.

As one of those that worked directly under Warrick for many years and who was handed the reins of the firm, Bradshaw left fond words about the memory of his longtime mentor.

“I began the practice of law in 2006, fresh out of law school,” he said. “Many people do not realize, but law school teaches you the law, but not necessarily how to apply it. Mr. Warrick was not only a role model for me personally, but served as a walking and talking legal encyclopedia of knowledge for me to learn from. He has forgotten more law than I will probably ever know. “

“Mr. Warrick had an unbelievable ability to remember the smallest details of cases in which he was involved decades ago and could tell the story with great fanfare.”

“Some people might remember him for his gruff demeanor,” he added. “You would learn early on that you do not want to ask him a question unless you were really prepared for his unfiltered opinion. However, he truly cared for the people he worked with and his clients. He would tell his clients what they needed to hear and not what they wanted to hear.”

As Bradshaw could attest, Warrick’s legal abilities were not only well known in Sampson County, but across the state. The firm reached the AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell, a peer review rating system. AV Preeminent is the highest peer rating standard and is given to attorneys who are ranked at the “highest level of professional excellence for their legal expertise, communication skills, and ethical standards by their peers.”

His prowess even landed Warrick as an inductee in to the North Carolina Bar Association’s General Practice Hall of Fame in 2011. This honor is bestowed to lawyers “who are outstanding members of the legal profession whose careers have served as models for lawyers in the general practice of law and who have the highest standards of ethics and professional competency and have rendered a high level of service to the Bar and to their communities,” according to the N.C. Bar Association.

“First of all, Ben Warrick was a great lawyer,” said longtime local attorney Benjamin Lee Wright, who practiced family law against Warrick for many years but was mentored by the man at the same time. “He knew about more areas of law than any other lawyer I have ever known. I started practicing law about 44 years ago, 1980, and Ben had been practicing here for a while. I looked around and I saw there were a lot of people doing different things and it looked to me like the best way to make a living here in Sampson County was to do family law. Why, because the only lawyer that was really doing much family law in 1980, was Ben Warrick, and so I thought, Ben needed somebody on the opposite side of law cases, so I said ‘I’ll do it.’”

“He was very good at family law and I guess you could say he certainly became a mentor to me,” he said. “Often I would end up on the opposite side of cases Ben had, so he and I tried a lot of cases together. Now, he was a very worthy opponent, he was a ferocious cross-examiner and he was always, always very prepared. Because of those factors, he was a very good teacher. I learned very quickly that when Ben was on the other side, you needed to be equally prepared. You needed to prepare your case as well as your witnesses, because he would be ready to ask them all the appropriate questions.”

Wright said that his personality often matched his grit and toughness in the courtroom, but that at the heart of his intimidating exterior was a true desire to help others.

“He was a very ferocious cross-examiner, and he could intimidate people, and I mean all these things in a very complimentary way,” Wright said. “I highly respect him, because of his knowledge of law and his knowledge of people. I think by design he wanted to be a good teacher and, in fact, was a good teacher. I know that when he kind of handed the baton to Frank, I really hated to see him step away from trying and doing family law cases. But, he certainly taught Frank well. Frank has become a very, very good lawyer because of his relationship with Ben.”

“He helped a lot of people in Sampson County, North Carolina, he really did,” Wright said. “When he walked into a room, he didn’t have to say anything — his presence was felt, he just had that kind of personality.”

While his accolades in law are apparent, Warrick’s life was much more than his profession.

He served on the Clinton City Schools Board of Education, even serving as its chairman. He acted in numerous plays with the local community and has been an active member of his church, First Methodist Church in Clinton, serving on the administrative board and in the church choir. Exposed to church at an early age, Warrick was a talented musician who enjoyed playing the piano, organ and singing Gospel music, rarely missing a chance to attend church and serve in some capacity — displaying his passion and sharing his extensive knowledge of the Bible with others, especially his friends in the C. Freeman Heath Sunday School Class.

Not only did Warrick have great love for church, he was an equally devoted husband and father to his wife, daughters Leslie and Leigh and two grandsons, Reid Edward Darden and Matthew Benjamin Darden. His family often being known as the one thing that eased his grouchy nature. A funny story another of the many attorney’s he mentored, Albert Kirby, heartwarming told.

“I’d say one of the funniest stories about Ben is that he just loved his children and his grandchildren,” Kirby said. “As to why that’s funny, I’ll preface that by saying this: I got to know Ben very, very well when he, Dale Johnson and Doug Parsons had the firm, Warrick, Johnson and Parsons. I clerked for those guys and I started out doing more work with Dale, but Ben would use me for some of his estate work, also work he did at his farm. That was something me and some of the other football players did back then, work on his farm and I would do law work, so I got to know him quite well.”

“Just knowing that he was a hard-working conscientious person, I got that from him,” he said.

Kirby noted that as Warrick got older, his serious nature grew more and more apparent. That said, when his grandchildren were involved he was a completely different person.

“As for one of those funniest stories I know about him, it goes back to that he loved his girls, his wife and he loved his family,” Kirby said. “There was a day when he came to the courthouse, and as he got further up in age, he got stern and kind of grumpy as a tough, tough lawyer. So he walked in this day and he was whistling, he was happy, and oh man, it was like a totally different Mr. Warrick.”

“I asked him ‘Mr. Warrick, what in the world is going on,’” he continued laughingly. “He said, ‘Albert, your life begins when your first grandchild is born.’ He told me he wasn’t even living until their first grandchild was born. I remember being told by the family that he spoiled those youngins — if the parents wouldn’t give it to him, the grandpa would.”

“He was a likable guy; I love Mr. Warrick, I learned a great deal from Ben,” Kirby said. “I learned a lot from Dale, Doug and Ben, all three of them, but Ben, I got a lot from him about dealing with other lawyers. The value of practicing law came from the way you dealt with other lawyers because that’s where your greatest benefit comes from. He was a good one and I’m gonna miss him.”

Many words were shared about Warrick’s life and legacy he built here in Sampson County. As his love for family was always at the forefront of every aspect of his life, it was only natural that they’d express their thoughts on the man they loved dearly.

”What would I say about daddy, gosh that’s hard,” said daughter Leslie Darden. “I will say he was always fair and people in this town knew he was a level-headed thinker. There was never a gray area with him and he was just a very honest, straight-forward kind of person. He was very black and white in his thinking and always had integrity. He will leave a legacy definitely in this town and in his law practice, also through his family and through his grandsons. I’m proud to say he’s just a very well thought of man.”

In her closing remarks Darden shared a fun story of her father that painted a vivid picture of what his love and devotion toward his family was truly like.

“I don’t know how many people would know this, but for about 20 years, he came over to my house every Saturday morning with breakfast for my kids,” she said. “He would go to McDonald’s and bring them breakfast every Saturday morning and spend time with them — very rarely missed a Saturday morning. He was very dedicated to spending that hour a week with them. He didn’t expect any more, but that was what we knew was his time.”