Candace S. Friel is an associate of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Winston-Salem, where she practices in the areas of healthcare, litigation, and antitrust.

A former Nelson Mullins summer associate, Ms. Friel completed a summer clerkship in the Chambers of United States Magistrate Judge Michael F. Urbanski in the Western District of Virginia. Prior to joining Nelson Mullins, Ms. Friel served as Chief of Staff in the office of U.S. Congressman Virgil H. Goode, Jr. of Virginia. In that position, Ms. Friel focused on healthcare policy and veterans and community development affairs. Before that she worked in the healthcare industry for various physician groups.

Ms. Friel is admitted to the North Carolina State Bar and is further admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

She is the author of "The High Cost of Global Intellectual Property Theft: An Analysis of Current Trends, the TRIPS Agreement, and Future Approaches to Combat the Problem," 7 Wake Forest Intell. Prop. L.J. 209 (2007). Her article was judged one of the best intellectual property law review articles of 2007 and was republished in the 2008 edition of the Intellectual Property Law Review, an annual anthology published by Thomson West.

She earned her Juris Doctor from Wake Forest University School of Law in 2007, where she served as Chief Justice of the Wake Forest Moot Court Executive Board, and was a member of the 2006 Wake Forest Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court competition team. Ms. Friel also served as articles editor for the Wake Forest Intellectual Property Law Journal. Upon graduation, she was awarded the American Bar Association Health Law Section and Bureau of National Affairs Award for Excellence in the Study of Health Law.

Ms. Friel earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Vanderbilt University in 2000.