About Barri
Barri Payne built a practice around family law over more than two decades. She combines courtroom experience, mediation training and an emphasis on financial clarity. Colleagues and clients see an attorney who takes a practical approach to often emotional cases.
Her legal training began at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she earned her J.D. in 1999. She completed undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1992, earning a B.A. with majors in Sociology and Religious Studies. Those academic interests inform how she handles family matters, especially those that involve complicated personal and financial dynamics.
Payne started her legal career as an associate at Stubbs Cole Breedlove Prentis & Biggs, PLLC in 1998. She moved into partnership in 2001 at Brock, Payne & Meece, P.A., where she handled a broad range of family law matters. In 2013 she opened Barri Payne Family Law & Mediation, taking responsibility for a practice that blends contested representation and alternative dispute resolution.
She holds board certification as a Legal Specialist in Family Law from the North Carolina State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. She is also a Certified Family Financial Mediator through the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission. Those credentials reflect training in both litigation and negotiation, and an ability to address the financial components that frequently determine the outcome of family law cases.
Payne has been active in bar association work since early in her career. She has been a member of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Family Law Section and the Durham County Bar Association’s Family Law Section since 1999. She also belongs to the 14th Judicial District Bar Association. In 2012 she served as co-chair of the Durham County Bar Association’s Family Law Section, a role she held through 2013. That involvement has kept her connected to local practitioners and to ongoing developments in state family law.
Her practice includes custody, support, equitable distribution and post-judgment matters. She often uses mediation as a tool to narrow disputes and to resolve financial issues outside the courtroom. When cases do proceed to trial, she draws on years of courtroom experience.
Payne is based in North Carolina and manages a private practice that provides both representation and mediation services. She currently concentrates her work on family law and family mediation.
