Shareholder, Maynard Nexsen PC
Christian is a Shareholder in Maynard Nexsen’s Government Investigations & White Collar Defense practice group. An award-winning defense attorney, Christian’s practice focuses on the representation of business entities and individuals under investigation or facing allegations of criminal and civil wrongdoing. He is a trial lawyer with more than 14 years in private practice who has handled hundreds of criminal matters throughout North Carolina and in federal courts nationally.
Christian has handled high-profile matters involving antitrust violations, political corruption, securities fraud, and countless allegations of fraudulent business dealings. He has successfully defended individuals facing potential professional licensure suspension or revocation.
His practice includes representation of businesses and individuals served with Grand Jury Subpoenas and Target Letters and asked to provide trial testimony, including counseling other attorneys and surgeon witnesses. Christian works with attorneys throughout the firm to ensure that his clients are afforded the most comprehensive representation.
Of equal importance to Christian’s success as a litigator is his ability to help those suspected of criminal wrongdoing, including those who may become a target of an ongoing investigation, avoid charges altogether. Christian has negotiated non-prosecution agreements, pretrial diversion agreements, deferred prosecutions, and the outright dismissal of charges in numerous cases.
Prior to joining Maynard Nexsen, Christian was a Founder and Managing Partner of Dysart Willis, a full-service criminal defense firm. Dysart, a Raleigh native, opened Dysart Willis in 2010 after a clerkship at the Supreme Court of North Carolina and a one-year Fellowship in the Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility at Duke Law School.
Founding Dean & Professor, Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law at High Point University
Hon. Mark Martin is the founding dean and professor of law at the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law at High Point University.
Mark served as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 2014-2019. He also served on that Court as an Associate Justice, on the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and on a North Carolina Superior Court.
The Chief Justice of the United States appointed Mark to the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction of the United States Judicial Conference. He also served on the board of directors of the Conference of Chief Justices.
Mark chairs the Thomson Reuters Judicial Advisory Council. He is a member of the American Law Institute, where he assists with the Third Restatement, Conflict of Laws, and serves on the Region 15 Advisory Committee.
Mark has served on the adjunct faculties of Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and the University of North Carolina law schools. Mark co-taught a course on the various modes of constitutional interpretation with Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the United States Supreme Court from 2020-2022.
Former U.S. Attorney, Western District of North Carolina
Attorney, Cranfill Sumner, LLP
Chad Rhoades is an attorney with Cranfill Sumner, LLP and is a member of the firm’s Administrative, Regulatory and Government Law and White Collar, Government Investigations, and Special Matters practice groups. Chad is also a member of Mincey Bell Milnor, an affiliate boutique group of Cranfill Sumner LLP based in Washington, D.C. Chad is an experienced litigator with extensive policy and political experience at both the federal and state level across multiple branches of government. Prior to joining Cranfill Sumner, Chad was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, served as Chief Counsel to United States Senator Thom Tillis, and worked in state government at the North Carolina General Assembly.
As a federal prosecutor, Chad prosecuted hundreds of criminal cases, led violent crime reduction task forces, chaired nine jury trials, and successfully argued before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Chad has led complex investigations and indicted sophisticated criminal organizations engaged in drug trafficking, violent crime, fraud, firearms trafficking, and money laundering. Prior to joining the United States Attorney’s Office, Chad served as Chief Counsel to United States Senator Thom Tillis. As Chief Counsel, Chad advised on matters that included firearms policy, antitrust, criminal justice reform, whistleblower protection, Electronic Communications Privacy Act, data privacy, campaign finance, and congressional and oversight investigations. During his time on Capitol Hill, Chad helped the office author, introduce, and shepherd bipartisan legislation. He also guided the office through the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices, circuit court judges, and high-level executive appointments. Before his time in Washington, D.C., Chad worked in state government at the North Carolina General Assembly where he practiced and advised in election and campaign law. Chad received his undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University and law degree from Campbell University.
Senior Legal Fellow and Manager, National Security Law Program, The Heritage Foundation
Charles “Cully” Stimson is a widely recognized expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, drug policy and immigration. A senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation since 2007, Stimson became Manager of the National Security Law Program in Heritage’s Institute for Constitutional Government in April 2013 after serving as Heritage’s chief of staff for a year.
Stimson writes and lectures on policy issues such as the law of armed conflict, terrorist detainee policy and interrogations, the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, the Patriot Act and FISA, criminal law and the death penalty, immigration and the war on drugs. As chief of staff to then-Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner, he was a key adviser on public policy matters as well as manager of Feulner’s office staff and Heritage’s day-to-day operations.
Stimson’s many research papers, op-eds and articles include special reports such as “Adult Time for Adult Crime,” a comprehensive study on the constitutionality of life sentences for teen-age murderers, and Sexual Assault in the Military: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It, a ground-breaking paper detailing the inner workings of the military justice system compared to its civilian counterpart. His work on criminal and immigration law has been cited in briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He testifies before the U.S. Senate and House on national security issues, and recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Law of Armed Conflict, Law of War, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Before joining the think tank in 2007, Stimson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. He advised then-Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and coordinated the Pentagon’s global detention policy and operations, including at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was chairman of detainee-related panels such as the Defense Senior Leadership Oversight Committee, and the Special Detainee Follow Up Group. He represented the United States before the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2006 where he led the DOD delegation in defense of the United States’ Second Period Report on the Convention Against Torture.
An accomplished trial lawyer, Stimson worked as a prosecutor at the local, state and federal levels, where he concentrated on violent crimes such as homicide, sexual assault and domestic violence. A third generation naval officer, Cully also served as a military prosecutor, defense counsel, and recently served as Deputy Chief Judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary. He continues to serve, with the rank of Captain, as the Commanding Officer of the Preliminary Hearing Unit.
Stimson’s thousands of media interviews and appearances include Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and C-SPAN. He has been quoted by most major newspapers, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times.
A businessman and educator by training, Stimson is Vice Chairman of his family’s commercial real estate company in Seattle. Before 9/11, he was a Vice President at a New York-based global financial services and insurance brokerage firm where ran the private equity mergers and acquisitions D.C. operation.
Stimson holds a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he later taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he was Captain of the men’s varsity soccer team and an All-Conference player. He also studied at Harvard and Exeter universities. An avid soccer player and triathlete, he serves as Chairman of the Board of the United States Soccer Foundation, the charitable giving arm of U.S. Soccer.
Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
Craig Trainor is Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. President Trump nominated Mr. Trainor for this position on February 11, 2025, and the United States Senate confirmed him on October 7, 2025.
A “Day One” Trump-Vance Administration official, he previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education, where he spearheaded the Department’s efforts to reorient America’s civil rights regime from an unjust spoils system to one that protects the rights of all Americans. Mr. Trainor’s February 14, 2025, “Dear Colleague” letter is widely considered the Trump Administration’s blueprint for enforcing civil rights laws and restoring the Constitution’s promise of equal protection.
Prior to serving in the Trump-Vance Administration, he was Senior Special Counsel with the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary under Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Senior Litigation Counsel with the America First Policy Institute under the Honorable Pam Bondi.
For over ten years, Mr. Trainor was a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in New York City, litigating cases in New York state court and the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
Prior to founding his law practice, he served as a New York City prosecutor, an associate attorney at a white collar criminal defense firm, and a law clerk to Chief Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.
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2024 North Carolina Chapters Conference
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Craig Trainor
Over the last two decades, the politics of American criminal law has made strange bedfellows....