Virginia R. Hager
After earning her law degree at The College of William and Mary in 1984, Ms. Hager practiced with federally-funded legal services organizations in Ohio and Kentucky before moving to Wilmington in 1990. She then practiced law as an associate attorney at a small general practice firm for five years, before opening her own solo practice in 1995. For the past fifteen years she has limited her practice to divorce, custody, adoption, and other family law matters.
Ms. Hager was certified in 2000 by the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission to conduct family financial mediations, and in 2011 underwent training to serve as a Parenting Coordinator by court appointment. Having represented countless clients in bitter adversarial trials over custody, equitable distribution, and support issues, she is excited and honored to be a founding member of Coastal Collaborative Colleagues, and enjoys assisting clients in "Doing Divorce Differently." She is a member of the Family Law Section of the American and North Carolina Bar Associations, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP).
Ms. Hager has successfully represented a number of gay or lesbian parents in custody and other family law matters in which their sexual orientation was made an issue by a former spouse or co-parent. She is a longtime member of North Carolina Gay Advocacy Legal Alliance and other organizations which advocate for marriage equality and other rights of LGBT persons, and for many years has been a volunteer cooperating attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Frank Harr Foundation, a Wilmington-based nonprofit organization serving the LGBTQ community. She also has extensive experience representing victims of domestic violence, and served on the Board of Directors of Domestic Violence Shelter and Services from August 1990 until January 1998, the last two years as President. For several years she was a member of EVOLVE Wilmington, an informal interagency group that works on domestic violence prevention.
She enjoys singing in the choir at St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church, and is the proud mother of a son who attended New Hanover County Schools and UNC-Asheville.