Judy M. Payne, JD, has led an extensive and varied career in the legal field. Her long-standing commitment to professional excellence and leadership has earned her a spot among the Marquis Who’s Who Top Lawyers. She is an attorney reviewer at Consilio LLC, where her 30 years of experience as an expert lawyer have had an invaluable impact on the cases her team undertakes.
Education, Internships, and Early Career
Payne earned a Bachelor of Arts in French and Communication from North Carolina State University in 1986. Her education brought many opportunities, such as studying French culture, media, and art at the Centre d’Approches Vivantes des Langues et des Médias (CAVILAM) in Vichy, France.
Later, Payne had the opportunity to travel to France again, this time to participate in the Business Internship Program of the University of San Diego School of Law in Paris, France, attending weekly seminars on topics pertaining to the practice of law in France. She also had an opportunity to conduct an internship at the oldest patent law firm in Paris, Bureau Casalonga. Here, she specialized in trademark law. She successfully completed the Institute on International and Comparative Law in Paris, France, in 1988.
Continuing to build a solid educational foundation, Payne earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1989 and certifications as a notary public from North Carolina’s Department of the Secretary of State.
Moving to San Francisco in 1995 during the internet boom, Payne’s career continued to thrive. She expanded her skill set and took on various responsibilities. Payne worked as an in-house counsel for several startups, handling a wide range of legal duties such as licensing law, contract negotiation, mergers, and acquisitions. She provided legal support for many business transactions during one of the most active startup economies of the digital era. This support was essential and challenging, providing versatility and precision to support sales and management teams through various deals.
Legal Expertise and Professional Growth
Payne’s experience continued to build in new and challenging directions. She worked as a subject matter expert for the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) in the field of intellectual property, where she served as one of 700 applicants to work on a solution to grid attacks during the Obama administration. This significant milestone in her career involved evaluating proposed software licenses alongside cybersecurity, privacy, accounting, and physical security experts. She also received a California real estate broker’s license and believes this experience in real estate has been an asset to her.
Payne was a Raleigh Arts Commissioner from July 2019 to October 2021, serving as co-chair of the City Art Grants Committee and also as a member of the Art, Education, and Collections Committee, which procures new work for the city art collection. She was also part of the Boylan Heights Neighborhood Association from 2014 to 2019 in various roles, including secretary, vice president, and president.
In addition to this, Payne served as a board adviser and secretary for what is now the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Commission, where she worked for two years and helped write a white paper on the sustainability aspects of hemp. She also contributed to the certification of hemp as a legal crop before the North Carolina Department of Agriculture following the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. Throughout this period, Payne worked on early lobbying efforts, organization, publicity, and education regarding the use of hemp as a base component.
Payne continues volunteering for causes she finds important to her, including for the National Audubon Society, where she goes each year to advocate at the North Carolina legislature on Audubon’s Advocacy Day. She also supports the local Wilmington Cucalorus Film Festival and All Things Open, an open-source code computer conference.
While helping with major cases for Consilio LLC, Payne is also the North Carolina representative for Futuro Houses, for whom she works to develop this important territory for new modernist homes.
Future Opportunities
Attributing her success to her perseverance, resourcefulness, adaptability, and creativity, Payne always seeks new directions to grow and new areas where her skills can serve to benefit. She aspires to use her professional and creative skills to support the arts and creative entertainment spaces, with an open mind to the roles where she can serve. Payne has spent her career building herself to better contribute to important projects and hopes the future will provide continued opportunities.
