Jonathan Gordon McGirt was born September 27, 1963, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, grew up in South Carolina and Virginia, and lived for a number of years in Kinston, North Carolina. In 1988, he completed his undergraduate education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors and with distinction in German, with a second major in philosophy. In 1993, he received his Juris Doctor from the UNC School of Law and in September 1993, became licensed to practice law in the State of North Carolina, and joined the law firm now known as Cheshire Parker Schneider Bryan & Vitale, becoming a partner in 1996. Also in 1996, he was admitted to United States District Court Bar for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and in 2000 was admitted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Bar. In 1998, he became a Board Certified Specialist in Family Law. Jonathan has developed a subspecialty practice concentrating on the division of retirement benefits in divorce (“QDROs”), and over the years, Jonathan’s practice has also gravitated toward family law appeals. Jonathan has been the lead attorney in over a dozen appeals and has had an associate or advisory role in many other appeals. He has argued before the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., and these efforts have resulted in a number of published opinions, including notably Long v. Long, 160 N.C. App. 664, 588 S.E.2d 1 (2003), Vadala v. Vadala, 145 N.C. App. 478, 550 S.E.2d 536 (2001), Embler v. Embler, 143 N.C. App. 162, 545 S.E.2d 259 (2001), and Hubbard v. OPM, 247 F.3d 1236, reh’g and reh’g en banc denied (Fed. Cir. 2001).

Jonathan has been active in his professional life, some highlights being: From 1996 through 2002, Jonathan was elected for two three-year terms on the North Carolina Bar Association Family Law Section Council, where he also served as Appeals Monitor since 1998 and as the Chair of the Domestic Violence Committee in 1999–2000. For a number of years, he was a regular contributor to the Case Update section of Family Forum, the Family Law Section’s Newsletter. He has also been a presence on Family Law Section’s listserv. From 1998 through 1999, Jonathan served as a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, which drafted a number of legislative proposals and led to the creation of the current Domestic Violence Commission, and he currently serves on the Family Law Section’s Domestic Violence Committee, which monitors pending legislation in this area of the law.

Jonathan has presented a variety of papers on family law topics, including: “Boulevards and Byways of Federal Retirement Plans” (North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, January 2005), “Howerton v. Daubert: ‘Decision Creep’ Stopped Cold” (North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, August 2004), “Some Thoughts on Property and Valuation” (North Carolina Bar Foundation, November 2001 and February 2002), “Ethical Problems in an ERISA Setting: Case Studies Under The Revised Rules of Professional Conduct of the North Carolina State Bar” (North Carolina Bar Foundation, February 1998), “Case and Statutory Update: Equitable Distribution, Paternity, Termination of Parental Rights, Qualified Medical Child Support Orders, and Other Federal Child Support Laws” (North Carolina Bar Foundation May 1997), “The Basics of Equitable Distribution” (North Carolina Bar Foundation, November 1996).

Jonathan has two children, Ellie and Asher, and has an interest in foreign languages, including German, French, Russian, and Italian, and enjoys bicycling and folding origami.