Barri Hilton Payne
BOARD CERTIFIED SPECIALIST IN FAMILY LAW
CERTIFIED FAMILY FINANCIAL MEDIATOR
Barri Hilton Payne is a Board Certified Specialist in Family Law and a Certified Family Financial Mediator. She is included in both the Family Law Section and the Family Law Mediation Section at Best Lawyers in America, North Carolina Super Lawyers, and the firm is included in Best Lawyers' Best Law Firms list. Born in High Point, North Carolina and grew up in Davidson County, she received her undergraduate from University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she majored in religious studies and sociology, and earned her law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law at Chapel Hill.
After twelve years as a partner in a local law firm, Barri opened Payne family Law & Mediation, her own solo family law and mediation practice in 2013. She has maintained her offices in Durham, North Carolina since the beginning and concentrates her practice on family law issues such as divorce, child custody and support, property division and spousal support, with an emphasis towards resolving these issues through alternatives like mediation designed to minimize conflict for the family. She assists her clients with will preparation, family law appeals, and adoption. Though located in Durham County, she also commonly helps people in Orange, Chatham, and Person Counties.
Before beginning law school at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Barri had the opportunity to reside in several different states including Washington, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. While she enjoyed many of these places, she loves calling North Carolina home. Barri lives in Durham with her husband, John, and their daughter, Amelia. Her family loves the beach, camping in their RV, and Durham’s many attractions such as Duke gardens, the DPAC, and downtown restaurants and art galleries. Barri and her family also stay busy with activities at their church.
Barri has regularly volunteered with the Legal Information Service through the Compass Center in Chapel Hill, which provides free telephone consultations to clients. Barri has taught seminars for the Compass Center’s Free Legal Clinics on the topics of child custody, child support, and spousal support. She has previously served as the Chair of the Durham Family Bar Association.
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About Barri Payne,
Durham Trial Lawyer & Family Financial Mediator
CRITICAL TRIAL & NEGOTIATION SKILLS FOR YOUR FAMILY LAW MATTER
Barri Payne is a North Carolina Board Certified Specialist in Family Law. She brings decades of experience to her family law clients and crafts creative solutions designed to provide lasting resolutions to their divorce dilemmas and other family law matters. Her offices located near Duke Hospital and Duke University campus are convenient to the doctors, nurses, academicians, grad students, and surrounding community that she commonly serves in her family law practice.
Barri offers a solutions-based approach and specializes in cutting through animosity that is so often a result of divorce. Her approach leverages the goodwill she has created in the community by operating with professional collegiality, integrity, and reasonableness in an effort to curb costs and save her clients money. She helps find common ground, the foundation upon which reliable settlements can be negotiated. When amicable resolutions are not possible, Barri is an experienced and formidable trial lawyer.
Barri is also certified as a Family Financial Mediator by the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission, a branch of the North Carolina Court System, and provides services to other family law attorneys that help them craft the same kind of creative solutions she brings to her own family law clients. Her vast experience and unique training in the art of negotiation have proven helpful to hundreds of divorcing people throughout the Research Triangle.