Gene Riddle (JD ’85) Shares Lifelong Commitment to Clients, Community, and Family

By Hannah Callaway

Gene Riddle (JD ’85) has a simple answer when asked what drew him to study law: “It’s about helping people in need.” When you’re young and passionate, he explains, you want to make a difference. Many people choose a career path to help them make the biggest impact in their communities. Practicing law, he says, is a meaningful way to pursue that path. As founder and managing partner of Riddle & Riddle Injury Lawyers in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Riddle speaks with authority, having traversed the path over a 40-year career. His daughter, Alex Riddle, joined him in 2020 and became a partner in 2025. However, the family connection to the justice system began long ago.

When Riddle’s father was in college, he was accepted to Wake Forest Law but instead chose to pursue a terminal degree in education. He later encouraged his sons to attend law school after completing their undergraduate degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Riddle’s twin brother, Dean, stayed in Chapel Hill to earn a JD from UNC, while Gene packed up and moved to Winston-Salem. After practicing many different types of law, Riddle eventually settled into injury law. And though he has an incredible breadth and depth of experience, he doesn’t play favorites with which cases he takes. “I want to take cases where people need strong representation,” he says with conviction. “It’s more about the client [than about the case]. They are the most important part of what I do.”

It is his unyielding commitment to his clients which has earned Riddle many recognitions throughout his career, including Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Super Lawyers, being named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer by The National Trial Lawyers, and his firm being recognized as a Best Family-Run Law Firm by NC Lawyers Weekly. But there is one special case for which he did not receive an award, but instead a valuable reminder.

Early on a weekend morning, Riddle met with a man who had just lost his sixteen-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. A tractor-trailer hit her car and the officer placed her at fault for running a red light. But her father wasn’t sold on the story. “We began investigating that very day,” Riddle recalls. Following a months-long process of interviewing witnesses and reconstructing the accident, he proved that the driver of the tractor-trailer was at fault for running the red light—not his client’s daughter. “There was a large settlement for the family,” he says, “but the money didn’t make things right. I could never get full justice.” Riddle still has her photo in his desk drawer as a reminder, perhaps, of what matters most.

Riddle embraces Pro Humanitate with each new case, leading with integrity while remaining committed to supporting his clients. “What truly defines you is not how you handle things when they’re going great,” he explains, “but rather how you behave when they’re challenging.” It’s harmful to win a case at all costs while laying your integrity aside, says Riddle. Instead, it’s better to win at all costs as long as you’re playing by the rules.

In his personal life, Riddle displays the same integrity through his community work. He has a self-proclaimed soft spot for animals, and Riddle & Riddle runs a special program that helps reunite missing pets by running social media ads at no cost to their owners. In the past, he has served as president of a regional outpost of the American Heart Association and served on the finance committee for St. Paul Methodist Church in Goldsboro. For years, he has provided pro bono legal services to the Goldsboro Family YMCA. And in 2009 he was awarded the Old North State Award by the Governor of North Carolina for his community service. While he is proud of this work, nothing is more important to him than the work of being a father. He’s most proud of his two daughters. It is a joy, he says, to work alongside Alex each day. And he’s hopeful that his youngest daughter, Arden, will join them at the firm when she completes her JD from UNC in 2026.

In reflecting on the decisions that have steered his path, Riddle is grateful to have chosen to be a Legal Deac. “Wake Law not only gave me a degree, but also the skills to put that degree to work in a profession that is well respected,” he says. “I’m 66 years old and have no plans to retire. I love what I do and I am thankful to Wake Forest Law for giving me that opportunity.”