Skip to content
Pfeiffer University
  • News
  • Events
  • Athletics
  • For You >
    • Current Students
    • Parents
    • Alumni
    • Faculty & Staff
  • Apply
  • Visit
  • Request Info
  • Give to Pfeiffer >
    • Give Now
    • Current Initiatives
    • Ways to Give
    • Devoted & True
    • Planned Giving
    • Office of Advancement
  • About Pfeiffer
    • Why Pfeiffer
    • Mission Statement
    • President’s Office
    • Campus Convenience
    • Pfeiffer Legacy
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate Programs
    • Graduate Programs
    • Academic Departments
    • Academic Centers
    • Pfeiffer Library
  • Admissions & Aid
    • Undergraduate Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
    • Tuition and Fees
    • Financial Aid
    • Scholarships
  • Career Success
    • Career Services
    • Explore Your Future
    • Career Coaching and Internships
    • For Employers
  • Student Life
    • Pfeiffer Journey
    • Pfeiffer Life
    • Pfeiffer Traditions
    • Campus Life
    • Religious Life
    • Center for Health Sciences
    • Graduate Campus

Pfeiffer News

  1. Home
  2. Featured
  3. From Pitcher to Attorney to Ordained Minister of the Gospel: Lyerly Models Lifelong Learning
Back to News
Related Stories
  • Academics & Research, Featured, Religious Life
    Pfeiffer Students Benefit from Attending Peace Conference
  • Academics & Research, Alumni, Careers & Outcomes, Featured
    Symposium Showcases Students’ Research
Alumni, Careers & Outcomes, Featured

From Pitcher to Attorney to Ordained Minister of the Gospel: Lyerly Models Lifelong Learning

by Ken Keuffel Jun 14, 2024

When Robert Lyerly ’76, an attorney practicing in the Estate, Tax and Business Planning Practice Group of Maynard Nexsen law firm, enrolled at Pfeiffer College, he hoped to pitch for Joe Ferebee, legendary Pfeiffer coach and the winningest baseball coach in North Carolina history. Lyerly, who originally hailed from Salisbury, N.C., had played on successful American Legion teams coached by Ferebee, and he envisioned enjoying similar results at Pfeiffer. Injuries derailed that plan, but his disappointment over not being able to play ball at Pfeiffer didn’t impede his progress in academics.

“I got involved in and began to really enjoy the classes and got motivated to do well academically,” he said recently from Maynard Nexsen’s Charlotte office.

Lyerly’s focus on his schoolwork paid off. He earned an A.B. degree in accounting at Pfeiffer, taking advantage of the College’s small classes and the extra attention he got from caring professors who challenged him each day.

He was named valedictorian for the senior class, and his high marks helped him secure acceptance into the M.B.A./J.D. dual degree program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A course he took on business law at Pfeiffer had awakened an interest in pursuing a law degree, even as he worked toward an accounting career. His CPA credential – earned while pursuing his graduate degrees – was put to good use for many years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he made partner, before pivoting to Maynard Nexsen.

When Lyerly looks back at the seeds that Pfeiffer planted in his life, he judges “a love of learning” to be among the most important. To this day, he calls himself a “lifetime learner.” He says he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“If you work in the areas that I do, you pretty much have to be a lifetime learner because my knowledge from even a year ago is not sufficient,” he said. “I need to continue to learn and stay up to date because the laws always change, and the tax laws are changing.”

One change to which Lyerly is paying a great deal of attention will happen at the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. That’s when existing estate and gift tax exemption amounts are scheduled to decrease to about $7 million per person or $14 million per married couple. Right now, the amounts are roughly $13.6 million for an individual and $27 million for a married couple.

“We’re working within all that, trying to give clients the best advice we can to minimize taxes,” he said. “A lot of our planning – including estate planning – centers around how you use your exemptions in the most effective way.”

Lyerly’s Pfeiffer-sparked love of learning has extended beyond his workplace into more spiritual realms. He is an active member of First Baptist Church of Charlotte, having, among other things, served as a Deacon and Chairman of the Deacons and led morning Bible studies. He has also chaired the church’s Finance Committee and served as the Chairman of a Pastor Search Committee, taught Sunday school, moderated meetings, and participated in a medical mission trip to Russia, in the early 1990s.

Several years ago, he felt a call to “prepare and study” academically for deeper involvement in Christian ministry, a process that resulted in him being formally ordained to gospel ministry by Charlotte’s First Baptist Church.

“As Christians, each of us is called to be a minister,” he said. “We’re called to serve the Lord in our individual capacities and in all aspects of our lives, particularly in the Baptist church. You have different roles and different things that you do.

“I thought, ‘If I’m going to be involved in ministry, if I’m going to teach Sunday school, if I’m going to serve in different ways, then I want to have this educational background that will equip me to do this well.’”

In the early 1990s, Lyerly enrolled in the Charlotte branch of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He wouldn’t earn a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell degree until 2018 and was ordained in 2018.

Lyerly called his divinity studies, which took 90 academic hours to complete, “on a par with my law degree, in terms of difficulty.” He spoke of somehow preparing for and participating in classes that were held on Friday evenings and Saturdays even as he went to work each day and met familial obligations, which included raising three children. “It was so difficult,” he said of that time.

About 60 hours into his work at Gordon-Conwell, Lyerly ran out of gas and stopped. Around 2011, shortly after he’d begun working at Nexsen Pruet  –  now Maynard Nexsen, he felt a new call to “go back and complete the degree” at Gordon-Conwell. He did — even though, initially, there was no record of him having completed a class in Hebrew during his first stint there. Eventually, proof of his having completed the Hebrew class emerged and he avoided the possibility of not passing a written Hebrew exam “purported to be so difficult that Moses wouldn’t be able to pass it!”

Also a participant in a Colson Fellows training program, Lyerly says his Christian faith has influenced his life in a holistic way. While being officially ordained as a minister of the gospel by Charlotte’s First Baptist Church, Lyerly’s ministry service has always been in a voluntary capacity while working at Maynard Nexsen.

“As a follower of Christ, we are all called to share our faith with others,” Lyerly said. “I don’t force-feed it to anybody. But there are different times when it’s very appropriate to share. For me, it’s kind of all encompassing. It’s part of who I am. It’s what I do. It’s just part of what I feel that my life should involve.”

Navigate between stories
Previous story
Next story
Pfeiffer University

Contact Us
800-338-2060

P.O. Box 960
Misenheimer, NC 28109-0960

Campus Locations

  • Misenheimer
  • Charlotte
  • Albemarle
  • Online
  • Campus Map

Helpful Links

  • How To Apply
  • Visit
  • Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Pfeiffer Library
  • Title IX
  • Employment
  • Resources
  • COVID-19
  • Policies
  • State Authorization
  • Accreditation
  • Mission Statement
  • Campus Store
  • myPfeiffer
  • IT Support
© Copyright 2025 Pfeiffer University. All Rights Reserved.
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • flickr
  • Apply
  • Visit
  • Request Info
  • Give to Pfeiffer >
    • Give Now
    • Current Initiatives
    • Ways to Give
    • Devoted & True
    • Planned Giving
    • Office of Advancement
  • About Pfeiffer
    • Why Pfeiffer
    • Mission Statement
    • President’s Office
    • Campus Convenience
    • Pfeiffer Legacy
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate Programs
    • Graduate Programs
    • Academic Departments
    • Academic Centers
    • Pfeiffer Library
  • Admissions & Aid
    • Undergraduate Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
    • Tuition and Fees
    • Financial Aid
    • Scholarships
  • Career Success
    • Career Services
    • Explore Your Future
    • Career Coaching and Internships
    • For Employers
  • Student Life
    • Pfeiffer Journey
    • Pfeiffer Life
    • Pfeiffer Traditions
    • Campus Life
    • Religious Life
    • Center for Health Sciences
    • Graduate Campus
  • News
  • Events
  • Athletics
  • For You >
    • Current Students
    • Parents
    • Alumni
    • Faculty & Staff