For 46 years, the Gates County attorney did it all — criminal defense at dawn, a real estate closing by noon, county business by afternoon. Later this summer, Godwin will retire. 

By Miles Layton

Unlike big cities, the people in rural Northeast NC get to know their local attorneys, called “country lawyers” by some. They draft the wills, facilitate real estate transactions, defend folks in court and tend to be there for life’s big moments. And many times, like a treasured family heirloom, generations of family members hold onto grandma or dad’s longtime attorney.

That’s why I wrote this story — to interview a local lawyer, beloved by all, who has served in the trenches in courtrooms near and far.  

Long familiar with Mr. Godwin as the county attorney for Gates County, I figured he would be a good interview, and he did not disappoint. He’s sharp as a tack and has a good memory of people and places, sort of reminds me of Civil War historian Shelby Foote. 

Pitt, thanks for your service to Gates County and the region.

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GATESVILLE — Philip Godwin Jr. has spent 46 years being the kind of lawyer that small counties depend on and big cities rarely produce. Criminal defense in the morning, a real estate closing after lunch, a county commissioner’s legal question by late afternoon — and somewhere in between, a grieving widow, a first-time homebuyer, a man in serious trouble hoping someone in the courtroom is on his side.

Godwin will retire this summer. He is 74, born and raised in Gates County, and has never really left — not in any way that counted. He played quarterback here in 1970, married his high school sweetheart here, joined his father’s law practice here in 1980, and has served his neighbors through the most consequential moments of their lives ever since.

“Probably the most rewarding thing over my career is being able to counsel and help people here in the county, provide legal services for them,” he told the Albemarle Observer in a recent interview.

“Gates County is my home and I’m proud of it,” he said. “I’ll always be glad that I came back.”

Available All Day Long

To understand Godwin’s career is to understand what it means to be a country lawyer — not the romanticized version, but the real one, with its impossible hours and bottomless variety.

“The biggest challenge I think of being a country lawyer is that you almost have to be available all day long,” he said. “You really can’t set a schedule like you want to, but it’s rewarding.”

The demands have only grown. Technology has multiplied the ways clients can reach a lawyer — email, cell phones, text — and in a place where everybody knows everybody, the boundaries between professional and personal are never entirely firm. Godwin has one piece of hard-won advice on that front: “Unless it’s a real close friend and client,” he said, “don’t give them your cell phone number. For sure.”

Over his career, Godwin handled criminal defense, drafted wills, closed real estate loans, took on many personal injury cases and one wrongful death matter. None of them came from a television advertisement. For 25 years, he also carried the weight of serving as Gates County Attorney, attending meetings, advising commissioners, navigating the legal terrain of local government. He was running in every direction at once.

“I was doing it all,” he said, “and running around and meeting myself halfway coming back, you know, it was a lot.”

When the district lacked a public defender, Godwin was placed on the appointed list in Chowan and Perquimans counties as well, sometimes spending a full week away from his Gatesville office working cases in other courthouses across the First Judicial District. He kept a folder of thank-you letters from clients over the years. He didn’t throw them away.

“The most rewarding thing is to see somebody that’s in trouble, either criminally or in a conflict, and trying to work through it,” he said.

Then there were the moments that put a smile on his face for a different reason — a young couple sitting across the desk at a real estate closing, nervous and excited, about to get keys to their first home.

“One thing that gives me pleasure is to see a young couple buy their first home and to see the excitement,” he said. “Helping them through that process — that’s something that puts a smile on my face, makes me feel good inside.”

That is the country lawyer’s life: felony murder one week, a first-time homebuyer the next. A county commissioner’s question on a Tuesday, an injured worker’s case on a Thursday. No two days the same, and no way to predict either.

“Thanks to all the Clerks of Court, Sheriffs, Register of Deeds and other county offices for their kindness and friendship over the years here in Gates County and in surrounding counties,” Godwin said. “Also I want to thank the judges over the years I have had the pleasure of appearing before them.I would surely want to thank Thomas B. P. Wood (law partner). I could not have worked with a better lawyer or person.”

The Bar That Looked After Its Own

Godwin did not learn this life alone. When he arrived in 1980 — sworn in at Halifax County by his uncle, Pilston Godwin, before returning to practice alongside his father — the older lawyers in the First Judicial District made a point of looking after the younger ones coming up.

“The older lawyers really took care of the younger lawyers as we came in,” he said. “My dad’s generation — I can think of many attorneys that lent me a hand. Mr. Gerald White. Mr. O.C. Abbott” — he named others from Elizabeth City and Hertford County. “Most of these lawyers are deceased now.”

What they left behind was a culture. Godwin describes the First District bar as congenial — lawyers who compete in the courtroom and cooperate in the hallway, who look out for each other’s clients when someone is out of town, who understand that in a small district, your reputation is everything and collegiality is not optional.

“The other lawyers in this district are very good to work with,” he said. “We have a very congenial bar here.”

Godwin served as past president of the First Judicial District Bar and holds memberships in the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Advocates for Justice. In 1989, he was admitted to practice in the Federal District Court. He is a graduate of Gates County High School, Wake Forest University, and North Carolina Central School of Law — the same Wake Forest his grandfather attended when he earned his degree in 1900.

Worth noting, I had a dusty file on my desk with Godwin’s name on it. I put a ribbon on the front to remind me of his father and the family, particularly since I’ve met people from Gates County through the years which is why the county and its people feel familiar and comfortable to be around like petting an old hunting dog.  

Way back in the day, Godwin’s father was a prominent NC lawmaker – even serving as Speaker of the House. See the obit here.  

Being that it’s Gates County, Godwin crossed paths with another Gates County icon, Thad Eure, who served as NC Secretary of State for more than 50 years, making him the longest-serving elected state official in U.S. history. Everyone knew Mr. Eure, his red bowtie and horn-rimmed glasses. 

Hell, Godwin’s partner, Thomas Wood, is a formidable attorney, more on him in a minute; son of Thomas Benbury Wood, RIP. See our story here.  

But I digress. I guess my point is, this tiny law office in Gatesville has long been a prominent spot on the state’s political and historical map.  

A Case That Never Left Him

Country lawyers accumulate stories. Something funny or off the rails happens, Godwin said, just about every court date. After 46 years, the inventory is long. But one case stays with him above the rest.

It was his father’s last criminal case — a felony murder defense. Phillip Jr. sat as second chair. His father tried it himself and won. What his son remembers most is not the verdict, but the moment before it: the defendant’s family sitting in the gallery, a plea offer on the table that might have meant release in about 15 years, and a mother who looked up and said it plainly.

“It’s in the hands of the Lord. Take it to a jury.”

“That was always sticking in my mind,” Godwin said.

He has also handled personal injury cases that brought him into people’s lives at their lowest moments — after a bad accident, a severe injury, the loss of a spouse. One wrongful death case that reached a good resolution. Those outcomes, he said, are among the most rewarding of his career.

“Being able to help somebody in their real time of need — that’s been rewarding,” he said.

Three Generations, One Building

The law office of Godwin and Wood occupies a building with deep roots — we’ve all seen it, marveled at it and know its prominence in the community across the street from the courthouse. More than a century ago, that was a bank.  

In 1900, a young attorney named Adolphus Pilston Godwin — fresh out of Wake Forest, newly arrived in Gates County after crossing the Chowan River by Parker’s Ferry — someone in Hertford County had told him Gates County had no lawyer, so he came with his suitcase to see. He rented office space in the bank that would someday be the Godwin family’s law office. 

And he rented a room upstairs in the hotel nearby that was run by his great-great grandfather, Walter Raleigh Hayes. Godwin fell in love with the hotel keeper’s teenage daughter, Mabel Hayes, who worked at the hotel, and later married her six or seven years later. They had five sons. All but one stayed in Gatesville. All five went to war — World War II in the Pacific and in Europe, and the youngest, Phillip’s father, to Korea. All five came home.

Two of those sons practiced law: Pilston Godwin and Phillip P. Godwin Sr., the latter of whom has a bridge named after him as you cross into Gatesville.

Phillip Jr. joined his father in 1980 and practiced alongside him until Phillip Sr.’s death on December 12, 2001. That experience, he said, was very, very good.

Now the clients come in and tell him their grandparents used his grandfather. Their parents used his father. Three generations of the same families, trusting the same name.

“Probably the most rewarding thing over my career is being able to counsel and help people here in the county, provide legal services for them,” Godwin said. “A lot of the clients that I serve — some of them my grandfather knew.”

“Taking it three generations makes me extremely proud,” he said. “It’s very difficult, as I’ve read articles, for a family business to go beyond three generations. It’s very unusual.”

Handing the Keys to Thomas Wood

Fourteen years ago, Thomas Wood came to the firm from the public defender’s office. The handoff has been gradual, intentional. As Wood grew into the criminal practice — taking on the courthouse travel, the appointed cases, the district court appearances across the region — Godwin pulled back from that arena and concentrated on real estate and whatever else came through the door. To read more about Thomas Wood, who was recently appointed as County Attorney for Gates County, click here.

At 74, Godwin acknowledges that retirement has a practical dimension alongside the emotional one. Health issues over the past two years — his first — have shifted his thinking.

“I’m at a place that is going to be hard,” he said. “But I’m at a place that I need to take some time to take care of myself a little bit better.”

His wife, Nora — his high school sweetheart — asked him recently whether he was truly ready to stop. He appreciated the question, he said, even if her motivations for asking it may have been mixed.

“I don’t know if part of that might be not wanting me around the house all day,” he said. “But I’m not gonna stick around the house all day. I’m gonna find something to do to contribute to my community.”

Outside the law, Godwin has served on the vestry at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, volunteered with the Gatesville Volunteer Fire Department, and contributed to the North Carolina Highway Patrol Police Benevolence Society. He holds membership in the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association. He has never been a man who sits still.

Later this summer, the name Godwin will no longer be practicing law in Gatesville. But the building will remain — the same one where his grandfather rented a room, fell in love, and decided to stay. Three generations of country lawyers worked inside it, handling the full and unglamorous and necessary business of people’s lives. That kind of work leaves a mark.