By Erin Reid P’01,’05

Jay Bryan ’66 retired as district court judge for North Carolina’s Orange and Chatham counties in 2020, and he continues to draw on his years of experience on the bench to help others find resolution through his consulting and mediation business. He is also a published poet, which allows him to share “life’s challenges and joys.”

With family ties that go back to the Hotchkiss Class of 1911, Bryan’s notable relatives include Bill Bryan ’39, who was a Hotchkiss athletic director, and the Rev. Bob Bryan ’49, winner of the School’s Alumni Award and founder of the Quebec-Labrador Foundation/Atlantic Center for the Environment. Bryan’s own path to Lakeville was never in question. “I honestly don’t recall any debate about my attending Hotchkiss!”

His inclination to assist others was tested in Lakeville on a hot summer day in 1965. Robert J. Woodbine ’69, a Hotchkiss Greater Opportunity (GO) Program participant, was anxious to join his friends in the lake. Woodbine couldn’t swim but hoped that he could copy his friends’ strokes. He was in obvious distress, and as he began sinking, Bryan, a GO Program proctor, grabbed his hand and saved his life. Woodbine reflected on this incident in the spring/summer 2024 issue of Hotchkiss Magazine.

Bryan earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale and spent time as an English-Speaking Union Scholar at the Wellington School in England. “My love of poetry developed there,” he explains. “My creative side realized itself with the country’s beauty and the uniqueness of its people. This stirred emotions that collided with the political and activist culture at Yale in 1967. From that confluence, and influences like poets E.E. Cummings and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, sprung my being compelled to write poetry.”

After earning a J.D. from North Carolina Central Law School (designated as a Historically Black College and University), he was admitted to the North Carolina Bar. He decided on law because “it seemed the best way to help people in need. That, combined with the turbulence of the time, and my experiences while serving as a counselor for the GO Program at Hotchkiss, served to inspire me.”

Much of his legal work has been on behalf of children. “I represented juveniles and saw the trauma that led to their behavior. There were terribly bitter custody cases where children’s lives were upended by their parents’ conflicts. I started advocating for the use of Guardian ad Litems (GAL) to investigate cases by interviewing children, parents, and collaterals, like teachers. They were then able to make recommendations to the court regarding custody to avoid excruciating litigation. Once the GAL role was established in our jurisdiction, I joined a group of lawyers and therapists to develop the role and use of parent coordinators. A coordinator facilitates discussions between parents and fosters mediated communications about custody issues, like exchange times, discipline, and daily routines. For certain issues, the coordinator is allowed to be the tiebreaker. This keeps parents from having to go back to court to resolve issues not addressed in the custody order and protects children from the impact of trauma on their long-term health.”

Elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, Bryan used his experiences to advocate for mediation between citizens and the town. “I had witnessed as an Alderman the insidious erosion of community well-being, relations, and trust when residents are in conflict. I worked with a friend trained in public mediation to craft regulations for the town as well as for local municipalities that had to convene on county issues and needed a structure for mediating differences. The regulations were adopted by the board.”

He attributes his company’s success to “giving each party my undivided, unbiased, trained attention and treating them with the respect and dignity with which I would want to be treated.” 

Bryan asks open-ended questions and is careful about sharing his opinions and recommendations due to the parties’ right of self-determination. “I always hope that I can move them along in their understanding of each other, resulting in trust and even some forgiveness, for future communications, even if they don’t settle in mediation. In my mediation process for violent crimes involving death, my personal experience with loss and grief allows me to apply compassion and empathy to both the victim’s family and the defendant.”

His love of poetry inspired him to help create the position of Carrboro Poet Laureate, adopted by other towns in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area. “To the best of my knowledge, Carrboro was the first municipality in North Carolina to create this position. Now, there are Poet Laureates in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham, and other towns, and in our local high schools. These laureates are spokespeople for writing, speaking, and reading poetry, and energize the community with their passion and talent, especially the spoken-word poets.”

Bryan has published several collections of poems to better understand himself. “It’s a kind of therapy which offers ways through written poetic language—different and unconstrained by formality or grammar—to live with a variety of life’s challenges and joys.” Bryan reads his poetry in this video.

Bryan reflected on his time in Lakeville as he approached his 60th Hotchkiss Reunion, which was held June 12-14. “Hotchkiss was not an easy time for me, yet it afforded me the discipline of studying and writing. I also benefited from developing values through my time as a counselor in the GO Program and my year in England. Hotchkiss guided me to be admitted to Yale,” he said. “Hotchkiss has changed since our time there as students. Upon arriving for our 2016 reunion, we learned that the School values and celebrates differences. I was deeply moved by this, and it positively shifted my thinking and deepened my gratitude for this modern-day Hotchkiss.”

He concluded with his thoughts on service at Hotchkiss. “I read Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School by Ernest Kolowrat and learned about the values and beliefs that led the founders to start the School. Service has always been a part of Hotchkiss’s ideals, and I enjoy reading testimonial after testimonial about what graduates are doing to make the world a better place and to increase recognition and respect for those who live in it.”