"Across three states, Jenny was hands-down the best divorce lawyer I worked with! Authentic, savvy, insightful, tough, empathetic and effective. Can ’t say enough good things about her."
Attorney Mary Slade Duke
Mary Slade Duke joins Triangle Smart Divorce as our newest attorney – in several senses. She graduated from Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in May 2022, passed the Bar in July 2022, and was sworn in October 2022!
It was a whirlwind few months for her and for us. We’re thrilled – to paraphrase Jim Malone in The Untouchables, “if you want to make sure you get a good apple, get one off the tree.”
Mary Slade may be new to the practice of law, but she is most definitely not new to the law. She grew up surrounded by the law – her father is a family law attorney and has been for, well, as long as Mary Slade can remember. She watched him in court even “when he didn’t want me to.”
Her father was initially against her pursing a legal career and, obviously unsuccessfully, actively tried to discourage it almost right to the day she stated at UNC as a political science major . . . at which time his tact turned to, “well, at least promise you won’t be a family lawyer.”
Dad, then, is 0 for 2 in the career advice department. Mary Slade and Triangle Smart Divorce are thrilled he is.
To be fair, Mary Slade did experience many law disciplines before deciding on family law. She worked in a personal injury firm (“boring”), handled landlord-tenant and class action cases (“ditto”), not-for-profit companies (“cool, but . . . “), while mentoring at-risk-children as part of her independent study at Campbell (“loved it”).
Family law, though, gives her what she was really looking for – the opportunity to work directly with clients and help them achieve the life they want.
Mary Slade works out whenever she can, but she is always taking care of her two rescue dogs, the 130lb German Shepard/Doberman mixed Woody, and the much lighter, much shorter, one-eyed Beagle, Herman. She volunteers at Saving Grace Animal Shelter and vows to eventually open her own rescue shelter.
Last, but hardly least as far as Triangle Smart Divorce office dynamics are concerned, Mary Slade bleeds Carolina Blue.
