An attorney with entrepreneurial and business consulting experience, and a bench behind him.

Scott R. Forbes serves as Of Counsel to DPS Law — the Law Offices of David P. Sheehan, PLLC — where he anchors the firm’s litigation bench in criminal defense, personal injury, and local government law. A courtroom lawyer in the oldest sense of the word, Mr. Forbes has spent his career in front of North Carolina judges and juries, and he serves as the appointed County Attorney for Anson County.

Mr. Forbes built his foundation in political science and government before earning his Juris Doctor from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he has been practicing law in North Carolina for more than two decades. The through-line of that practice has never changed: trial advocacy for people and institutions that need a lawyer willing to try the case, not just paper it.

The first pillar of that practice is criminal defense. Mr. Forbes has handled hundreds of criminal cases across the state of North Carolina, with trial experience in both District and Superior Courts, defending clients in matters running from traffic offenses and misdemeanors through serious felony charges. Criminal work is where a trial lawyer’s instincts are forged — cross-examination under pressure, evidentiary fights that decide cases before closing argument, and juries that must be won rather than assumed — and it remains as deep a part of his practice as any other.

The second pillar is personal injury, and it runs every bit as deep. At two of the region’s most active injury firms, Mills & Levine, P.A. and Ted A. Greve & Associates, P.A., Mr. Forbes worked on more than one thousand personal injury cases — automobile and trucking collisions, workplace injuries, premises liability, and wrongful death — carrying files from intake through investigation, negotiation, and trial. That volume produced results, including seven-figure settlements and verdicts, among them a settlement of eleven million dollars, and a reputation among his peers for his ability to negotiate with insurance carriers, read a jury, and walk into the courtroom when the number is not right. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

For a number of years, Mr. Forbes has also served as the appointed County Attorney for Anson County, where he represents the county as a whole rather than any single department. He advises the Board of Commissioners on every matter that reaches the public agenda; counsels the county on civil rights matters; guides industrial and economic development projects as they are recruited, negotiated, and closed; and manages the county’s legal affairs in all facets — contracts and procurement, real property and public facilities, personnel, elections matters, school and capital projects, ordinances, and litigation. His contract has been renewed by the Commissioners year after year, with board leadership publicly praising the value of his counsel through the county’s most complicated legal questions.

That combination matters. A lawyer who has defended the accused, tried injury cases to verdict, and answered for a government — where every decision is public and every dollar is taxpayer money — brings a range that cannot be assembled any other way, and clients on every side of his practice benefit from it.

Today, Mr. Forbes leads Scott Forbes Law from Wadesboro, North Carolina, where his practice serves clients throughout Anson and Union counties and the greater Charlotte region: free consultations, direct access to the attorney actually handling the matter, no fee on injury cases unless the case is won, and clients treated like family from the first phone call forward.

Through his Of Counsel role with DPS Law, Mr. Forbes accepts co-counsel and referral matters in criminal defense, personal injury, wrongful death, and local government law — one of the rare attorneys who has stood in front of juries for the accused and the injured alike, and stood behind a county through every legal question it faces.

Jana K. Jones is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Law Office of Jana K. Jones, PLLC, where she represents individuals and families in family law and estate planning matters. A Charlotte native who has practiced law in the greater Charlotte area for more than a decade, Jana has built her practice around a straightforward philosophy: clients facing some of the most consequential decisions of their lives deserve an attorney who will tell them the truth, prepare them for what comes next, and fight strategically for what matters most.

Family law has been at the center of Jana’s practice since she entered private practice. She represents clients in matters involving child custody and visitation, child support, divorce, equitable distribution, post-separation support and alimony, separation agreements, contempt, and modification proceedings. Her practice has given her extensive experience with the realities of family disputes, where the legal issues cannot be separated from the emotional, financial, and practical consequences for the people involved.

Over the course of her career, Jana developed a particular commitment to representing fathers. She saw too many good fathers enter the family court system believing they were automatically at a disadvantage or that being an involved parent somehow mattered less because they were not the mother. Jana’s philosophy is different. Fathers have an important and irreplaceable role in their children’s lives, and she believes they deserve informed, strategic representation that protects both their parental rights and their relationships with their children.

That focus does not mean viewing every family law case as a battle. Jana believes effective representation requires knowing when to negotiate, when to resolve an issue efficiently, and when a client’s interests require a firmer approach. She is candid with clients about the strengths and weaknesses of their positions and works to give them the information they need to make sound decisions rather than simply telling them what they want to hear. Her goal is not conflict for conflict’s sake. It is to identify what matters, develop a strategy, and move the client toward the best achievable outcome.

Jana’s approach to family law is rooted in a background that began long before she opened her firm. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating on the Dean’s List and earning recognition for academic achievement. Her study of sociology gave her an early understanding of family systems, human behavior, and the influence parents and communities have on a child’s development.

She went on to earn her Juris Doctor from North Carolina Central University School of Law, where her interest in children and families became an important part of her legal training. Her work with the Center for Child and Family Health in Durham included legal research involving evidentiary issues in child abuse cases. She also served as a member of Durham’s Domestic Violence Response Team and Sexual Assault Response Team, working alongside law enforcement, medical professionals, and community stakeholders. Jana was trained and certified as a mediator through the North Carolina Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission and mediated cases in Wake County. Her commitment to service during law school was recognized with the North Carolina Bar Association’s Certificate of Achievement for Public Service.

In 2009, Jana opened her own law practice. What began as an entrepreneurial decision grew into a firm built around the belief that clients should understand both their legal options and what their representation will cost. Over the years, Jana has grown from a solo practitioner into the leader of an expanding legal team while remaining actively involved in the practice of law and the representation of her clients. The Law Office of Jana K. Jones, PLLC emphasizes clear communication, strategic representation, and transparent pricing, including flat fee and structured fee arrangements designed to give clients greater predictability during an already uncertain time.

Jana’s understanding of family is also deeply personal. Divorce, reconciliation, remarriage, and blended family dynamics are not concepts she understands only from representing clients. They have been part of her own life. Her parents divorced before she was born, later reconciled and had Jana, and ultimately divorced again when she was an adult. Today, Jana is a wife and mother in a blended family, having married a husband who was previously married.

Those experiences have given Jana a perspective on divorce that extends well beyond what happens in a courtroom. She understands that families do not always follow a straight line. People separate and sometimes reconcile. Marriages end and new families are created. Children grow up carrying their own experiences of their parents’ relationships, and former spouses may remain connected through children and family responsibilities long after a divorce is final. A legal case may end with an order or agreement, but the family often continues in a different form.

As an attorney, wife, mother, and business owner, Jana also understands that decisions involving family rarely exist in a vacuum. Careers, children, marriages, finances, schedules, and responsibilities all compete for attention, and the choices made during a family transition can affect every part of a person’s life. That perspective has made Jana especially mindful of giving clients advice that works not only on paper, but in the real world they will have to live in after the case is over.

Being a mother has reinforced something Jana has seen repeatedly in her practice: children benefit when the adults responsible for them are able to keep their long-term well-being at the center of the conversation. She understands both the instinct to protect your child and the importance of making thoughtful decisions that serve a child beyond the immediate conflict. Her own experiences with divorce, reconciliation, remarriage, and blended family dynamics have deepened her appreciation for the many layers families may be navigating at once. That perspective informs the practical, direct advice she gives parents navigating custody and other family law disputes.

As her practice has grown, Jana’s understanding of what it means to protect a family has expanded as well. Today, the firm also provides estate planning services to help clients protect their assets, make deliberate decisions about incapacity and inheritance, and create a plan for the people they love. For Jana, family law and estate planning are connected by the same fundamental idea: good legal representation should not simply respond to a crisis. It should help people protect their families, their rights, and the legacy they are building.

Jana is admitted to practice in North Carolina and the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. She is a member of the North Carolina State Bar, Mecklenburg County Bar, North Carolina Bar Association, John S. Leary Association of Black Attorneys, and North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.

Charlotte is not simply where Jana practices law. It is home. She was raised here, built her career here, opened her firm here, and is now raising her own family here. That connection to the community, combined with nearly two decades of experience and a lifetime of seeing firsthand that families can change, separate, reconnect, and rebuild, shapes the way she approaches her work today: with candor, preparation, perspective, and an understanding that behind every case file is a real family trying to figure out what comes next.