National Affairs: FROM COTTON FARM TO BAR PRESIDENCY

As Charles Sylvanus Rhyne, at 45 the youngest president in the 80-year history of the A.B.A., talks about Law Day, he loses the leisurely North Carolina cadence of his speech; his brown eyes glint behind plastic-rimmed glasses; he clenches his fist, and his knuckles turn white. Law Day is, essentially, the expression of his feeling for the law. And the law has all the deeper meaning to Lawyer Rhyne because he became a man of law the hard way.

Charlie Rhyne was born on a cotton farm in rolling Mecklenburg County, a few miles from Charlotte, son of "the most wonderful mother...

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