Meet Emily
If you were to drop a giant, intimidating box of IKEA furniture components in front of a group of people, most would panic. Emily Mae Percifield, however, is the person who quietly picks up the instruction book, studies the layout, breaks the overwhelming mess down into simple pieces, and maps out the exact order everything needs to happen in so everyone else can breathe a little easier.
As an Associate Attorney at Cape Fear Family Law, Emily brings that exact same grounding, systematic energy to families navigating some of the most chaotic chapters of their lives. She knows that when people walk through her door, they aren’t just dealing with a legal file—they are making monumental life decisions while running on empty, overwhelmed by emotion, and short on sleep. Emily’s goal is simple: to make a profoundly overwhelming situation feel completely manageable. She has earned a reputation for treating clients like actual human beings rather than folders on a desk, ensuring that everyone leaves her office feeling more hopeful than when they first arrived.
A Path Shaped by Advocacy and a Surprising Twist
Emily’s journey to family law wasn’t a straight line, and she spent a good portion of her early college years assuming her future clients would walk on four legs instead of two. She began her academic career at Purdue University as an Animal Science major on the pre-vet track, spending her free time volunteering in a veterinary gait lab walking dogs across sensor mats and navigating unexpected farm animal encounters.
However, a pivotal Women’s Studies class during her junior year changed everything. Emily began volunteering with sexual assault advocacy organizations and realized that what she truly loved wasn’t the pure science—it was working intimately with people to solve high-stakes problems in their moments of deepest need. She went on to build an It’s On Us awareness chapter from scratch at Purdue, stepping far outside her comfort zone to recruit volunteers, speak at major campus events, and launch a massive awareness campaign that eventually had athletes and students all across campus wearing their shirts. That early victory solidified her calling: bringing people together around things that matter.
Emily took that drive to the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she graduated cum laude, served as an editor for the Public Interest Law Reporter, won CALI Excellence Awards in Legal Writing, and competed on the National Moot Court Team.
Courtroom Tested, Deeply Empathetic
Before relocating to the North Carolina coast, Emily cut her teeth in the high-pressure environment of the Cook County Office of the Public Guardian. Serving as an Assistant Public Guardian and guardian ad litem, she independently litigated contested child protection hearings, emergency placements, and trials in the juvenile court system, stepping into the courtroom two to three days every single week. Managing a high-volume caseload that at one point reached 135 minor clients, she learned how to maintain an absolute grip on complex details while handling sensitive, traumatic dynamics with total care. Her leadership in the field eventually led her to serve as a Human Trafficking Co-Coordinator, acting as a specialized office resource and representing her agency on task force committees.
Now fully admitted to the North Carolina Bar and locally verified to practice in New Hanover County, Emily applies this deep background in child advocacy and domestic relations to her family law practice. She completely rejects the old-school legal status quo that lawyers get bonus points for sounding like robots. She believes that clients make their best choices when they actually understand the rules of the game, so she intentionally strips out the dense legal jargon and replaces it with real, clear, conversational communication.
Fierce Advocacy with a Touch of Pink
Don’t let Emily’s warm, conversational demeanor fool you—she is a fierce defender of her clients when they need someone in their corner. Since her high school debate days, colleagues and competitors alike have handed her the nickname “Elle Woods”. It’s a comparison she happily embraces. Beyond the blonde hair and an unyielding appreciation for the color pink, Emily mirrors the iconic character’s core traits: she is incredibly smart, relentlessly hardworking, unassailably kind, and highly effective at proving people wrong when they underestimate her.
When family law cases get chaotic, Emily deploys her personal secret weapons: meticulously color-coded calendars, detailed checklists for absolutely everything, and an impressive collection of sticky notes to keep the chaos perfectly organized. Her advocacy is fueled by a profound sense of empathy. She balances the gravity of litigation with a genuine, quick-witted sense of humor, acting as an intentional, steady anchor for her clients as they redraw the maps of their lives.
Life Outside the Office
Now proudly putting down roots in New Hanover County, Emily spends her Saturdays leaning into a wonderfully unplanned, happy kind of chaos. A perfect weekend involves a hot cup of coffee followed by five different spontaneous activities—whether that’s a local dance class, hunting for treasures at an antique store, exploring the farmers market, heading to the beach, or enthusiastically starting a home DIY project that she falsely promises herself will only take an hour. All of these weekend adventures are strictly supervised by her two cats, Winston and Leo.
A self-described comfort-TV person who has no shame rewatching her favorite shows five times over, Emily is also weirdly passionate about the art of bedazzling. If a household item or accessory can be rhinestoned, there is an incredibly high probability she has already considered it. Her love for unpredictable adventures extends globally; she once spent three weeks backpacking through southern Africa, where she walked with lions, white-water rafted down rapids, learned to surf, and went deep-level caving. That trip taught her a life lesson she passes on to her clients daily: some of the absolute best outcomes in life come from the plans that completely fell apart.
