HENSON FUERST - Key Persons
Partner Anne Duvoisin joined Henson Fuerst in 2003. Anne is a litigator, plain and simple. She has spent her entire legal career, starting in 1978, trying cases in the state and federal courts of North Carolina before hundreds of juries and judges. In addition to trial work, she has handled cases in North Carolina's appellate courts. She has worked as a mediator and arbitrator since 1996. She was honored to be elected to the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals, where she serves as a panel member. She has lectured and written extensively on legal topics, both nationally and statewide. And she has been an active participant in legal organizations in North Carolina, chairing various sections and committees in both the North Carolina Advocates for Justice and the North Carolina Bar Association. She has taught at UNC Law School as well, on legal writing and appellate advocacy.
Anne's litigation work over the decades has been wide-ranging. She has represented people from all walks of life in all kinds of cases: From capital punishment cases to civil rights cases, to medical malpractice and nursing home abuse cases, to personal injury cases, to contract disputes involving professional athletes and more - the defining characteristic of her litigation has been its focus on protecting citizens from overreach by government, government funded entities and powerful organizations. Her focus has always been on individual rights.
Anne spends as much of her free time as possible outdoors - hiking with her English Shepherd Coco, playing tennis and gardening. When not outside, she is usually to be found cooking gourmet meals or reading. She loves to travel with her daughter Rebeccah and her sister Jeanne.
Anne moved to the mountains ten years ago and now lives in Boone, North Carolina. Since moving to Boone, she has served as the President of the Watauga County Bar Association, a voluntary bar association, where she established free CLE for High Country lawyers as a membership benefit. She also served as the President of the 24 th Judicial District Bar (the mandatory bar for Watauga, Yancey, Avery, Mitchell and Madison Counties).
Carma Henson is a partner at Henson Fuerst, where she practices with her husband, David Henson, as well as her brother-in-law Thomas, and Rachel Fuerst. Carma is currently serving as the Treasurer of the American Association for Justice's Nursing Home Litigation Group, and is Vice-President of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice's Nursing Home Section.
Attorney Chris Beacham is eastern North Carolina born and bred with a passion for helping the people and communities in which he grew up. Chris has litigated personal injury, civil rights, contract, construction, and land condemnation cases in North Carolina State and Federal Courts.
is eastern North Carolina born and bred with a passion for helping the people and communities in which he grew up. Chris has litigated personal injury, civil rights, contract, construction, and land condemnation cases in North Carolina State and Federal Courts.
Throughout his education and career, he has focused on litigation as a means to get effective results for his client. In 2011, after practicing personal injury litigation at a successful coastal firm, Chris moved to Raleigh with his wife and four children where he went to work for the North Carolina Department of Justice in their Transportation Division (NC DOT). His job was to be a land condemnation litigator on behalf of the State.
After learning the ins and outs of land condemnation, he decided that he could not continue to work on behalf of the government-working against people and business owners who were having their lives and livelihoods taken by the State for as little as the government could get away with. Since then, Chris has represented owners of convenience stores, hotels, property developers, nurseries, farms, storage unit companies, laundromats, sweepstakes businesses, screen printing shops, artists, multi-use properties, and residential clients across the State of North Carolina in land condemnation cases.
Chris has always been dedicated to making sure people understand the impact the law has on their lives. After law school Chris taught Law and Social Change at East Carolina University. It is important that people understand that the law, and the government's implementation of it, can impact them at a personal level as well as their families and communities. Land condemnation is one of the greatest examples of this. The government, by drawing a few lines, can uproot a family, eradicate communities, kill local businesses, or take away a property that has been in a family for generations.
Chris' passion for fighting on behalf of individuals and businesses against the government has led him to work with numerous experts finding different approaches to make sure that individuals with affected properties have the best opportunity to recover from the government for what has been taken from them. Chris has tried several cases to verdict and used multiple presentation and negotiation techniques to successfully increase offers from the government; but also to make changes that could help an owner maintain a preferred or profitable use from a property. Some of those changes including negotiating an interchange on a large road project for a developer, an extra driveway for a farm that would have otherwise been left with no access, or procuring a remnant parcel so that a hotel would have a second access and benefit from increased traffic on a new road.
David Mason joined Henson Fuerst in 2018. He has spent most of his career as a personal injury litigator and trial attorney, advocating on behalf of injured people in North Carolina.
David attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and minor in Spanish. His passion for justice and helping others brought him to Campbell University's Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in Raleigh, where he earned his degree of Juris Doctor. During law school, David represented Campbell Law in the ABA Negotiation Competition. In addition, he completed internships at Wake County District Court, Duke Energy, and multiple Raleigh law firms.
As your attorney, David believes in giving your case the attention it deserves. He promises to treat you with respect and be the enthusiastic advocate that you need on your side. Whether you seek a strong voice or thoughtful ears, David will guide you through the legal process with a keen focus on you and your case.
Outside of work, David enjoys traveling. Some of his favorite destinations include Italy, Central America, Spain, and the North Carolina High Country.
Thanks to David's Hispanic heritage and his experiences, which include studying abroad in Spain, he is skilled at conversational Spanish.
David also loves playing and watching sports (Go Wolfpack!) and trying new restaurants. He and his wife, Caroline, have one child, Theodore, and a bluetick beagle named George.
David Henson joined Anne in the Map Act litigation and the two lawyers have worked hand in glove, resolving more than one hundred Map Act cases. These were cases which most condemnation lawyers would not touch, because they involved challenging existing law and would be difficult, time consuming and expensive with a questionable chance of success. But Anne and David threw themselves headlong into this litigation, along with a few other brave litigators, and they made history as a result. To date, their awards for clients in Map Act cases exceed $36 million dollars on behalf of property owners in Pender, New Hanover, Pitt Cleveland and Wake Counties.
Job Titles:
- Attorney
- Member of the North Carolina Advocates for Justice
Job Titles:
- University Law Review, Member
Robert Louis Fuerst, known to most as Bob, co-founded Henson Fuerst, PA with Thomas Henson, Sr. in 1976. He had an unbridled commitment and dedication to serving others in his work and his personal life.
Bob was one of the first family law specialists in North Carolina. He later focused his practice on fighting against nursing home abuse and becoming a staunch protector of the elderly in North Carolina.
His law career spanned over 40 years focusing on family law at first, then transitioning into nursing home abuse and catastrophic injury cases.
Job Titles:
- Attorney
- Partner
- Now Retired
- Retired
Now retired, Thomas W. Henson, Sr., founded Henson Fuerst with Bob Fuerst in 1976. He received his bachelor's degree in 1964 and his Juris Doctorate in 1967-both from the University of North Carolina.
Thomas Henson Jr. joined Henson Fuerst in 1989. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration in 1986 and his Juris Doctorate in 1989-both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Thomas is the Past Chair of the board of directors of the Brain Injury Association of North Carolina (BIANC), advocating for brain injury victims and their families across North Carolina, and currently serves on its board. He has been a presenter at multiple conferences for victims of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), their caregivers, and brain injury professionals.