About Attorney Will Martin

Will Martin acted as General Counsel to the North Carolina Association of REALTORS® from 1996 through 2022. He advised NCAR’s leadership and staff on a wide range of legal matters and handled a large number of inquiries from individual members and local associations of REALTORS® on legal issues affecting the practice of real estate brokerage and association administration, including contract, agency, real estate licensing, landlord/tenant and fair housing laws, RESPA compliance, MLS issues, and ethics and arbitration proceedings. Will also advised a number of NCAR committees on professional standards, standard forms and risk management issues. He was an approved continuing education instructor and a frequent speaker at local associations and firms across North Carolina. He served as interim Executive Vice President of NCAR from March 2000 through September 2000.

Will also represented several local associations of REALTORS, provided specialized risk management advice to real estate brokerage firms and agents across North Carolina, and worked with his partner Bill Gifford in the representation of firms and agents in civil litigation and in the defense of complaints pending before the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.

Will began practicing law in 1985 as an associate in the Mocksville, NC firm of Martin & Van Hoy, where he engaged in the general practice of law, including general civil and criminal litigation, estate planning, family law, personal injury law, municipal law, commercial law, and real property transactions. He became a partner there in 1988. Will joined the Winston-Salem firm of Craige, Brawley, Liipfert, Walker and Searcy in 1989, and became a partner there in 1993. His practice concentrated in the area of business law, including the organization of for-profit, non-profit and professional corporations, limited liability companies, general and limited partnerships, acquisitions and sales of businesses, and other transactional work relating to the operation, financing, merger and dissolution of business entities. He also had a significant real estate and estate planning practice. Will was a manager in the firm of Martin & Gifford, PLLC from its inception in 2005 through June, 2022.

Bar Admission

• North Carolina – 1985