Rocky grew up in Salisbury, North Carolina. He is a proud graduate of the Class of 1992 of Salisbury High School (Go Hornets!). He furthered his education in the ‘Southern Part of Heaven’ at the University of of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he received his Bachelors Degree (Go Heels!). Following a call to become an attorney, Rocky ventured down to sunny Gainesville, Florida and obtained a Juris Doctor degree (with Honors) from the University of Florida Levin College of Law where he served as Senior Research Editor of the Florida Law Review (Go Gators!).
Spurning a career in corporate law after graduation, Rocky started his legal career at Three Rivers Legal Services in Gainesville, Florida – first, as an AmeriCorps Housing Attorney and later, as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, where he designed an innovative access to justice project to serve the legal needs of the low income community in rural north central Florida. After his public interest law fellowship, he made his way to Florida’s capitol, Tallahassee, where he started a Community Economic Development legal unit at Legal Services of North Florida where he provided direct legal services to affordable housing and community development related nonprofits throughout the Florida panhandle.
In 2012, he returned home to North Carolina, where he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Law at an ABA accredited law school in Charlotte, North Carolina. During his tenure at the law school (2012-2017), Rocky developed and supervised a legal clinic (staffed by certified legal interns) that provided free legal services to Charlotte area nonprofit organizations. Additionally, he has taught as an adjunct professor in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Master of Public Administration program teaching courses in public administration law and nonprofit capacity building. From 2017 through 2019, Rocky spent two years running the Salisbury-Rowan Community Action Agency (a multi-million dollar federally funded nonprofit) as its Executive Director where he oversaw a Head Start program that served over 1000 children and families throughout five counties and a federally funded CSBG workforce development program in Rowan and Cabarrus Counties.
In October 2019, Rocky decided to return to the full time practice of law and joined the law firm of Hull & Chandler P.A. He is a Member in Good Standing with the North Carolina and Florida Bars.