About me
John C. Bircher III was born in Columbia, S.C., on September 23, 1970. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to the family dairy farm in Craven County, N.C. He later entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice in 1992. He attended the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University and received his Juris Doctor in 1997.
John is a member of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees and is a member of the NABT Board of Directors, serving on the CLE Planning Committee, Assistant Editor of the American Bankruptcy Trustee Journal, and Co-Chair of the Legislative Committee. He is licensed to practice before all state and federal courts in North Carolina, in the Northern District of Georgia and the state courts of Tennessee. He is a member the Bankruptcy Section of the North Carolina Bar Association, The Eastern North Carolina Inn of Court and the Eastern Bankruptcy Institute Board of Directors. Bircher served as Chair of the Bankruptcy Section of the NCBA in 2015-2016. John is also on the Association of Chapter 12 Trustees Board, serving as its Treasurer.
Since 2009, John has been certified as a Specialist in Business and Consumer Bankruptcy Law by the N.C. State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Bircher was initially appointed to serve on the North Carolina State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, Bankruptcy Specialty Committee, and currently sits on the N.C. State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, overseeing all specialty groups for the State Bar. John, also a Certified Mediator, was recently nominated to serve on the Dispute Resolution Council of the NCBA, where he serves on the Ethics Committee.
He was appointed to the NC Bar Association Board of Governors and NC Bar Foundation Board of Directors for a three-year term beginning July 2017, serving as Nominating Committee Chair in 2020. In addition, Bircher serves on the panel of Chapter 7 Trustees in the Eastern District of North Carolina and he is Chapter 12 Case Trustee for the District. He served as a member of the EDNC Local Rules Committee for over ten years.
John has been selected for inclusion to the North Carolina Super Lawyers list in Bankruptcy and Creditor’s Rights since 2011 and has been named to Business North Carolina's Legal Elite in Bankruptcy since 2013. He also received an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell in 2021.
John is the Past Chair of the Neuse River Development Corporation and Past Chair of the Board of the Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation. Bircher serves as an At-Large Member of the North Carolina Tryon Palace Commission appointed by a Republican Governor and reappointed by a Democrat Governor and serves on the Executive Committee as legal counsel to the Commission since 2013.
He is Vice-Chair of Bradham’s Legacy, Inc., a non-profit corporation dedicated to the formation, construction and operation of a Pepsi-Cola Museum in the Birthplace of Pepsi, New Bern, North Carolina.