Josh learned and has lived this value by devoting his entire career to public service, working as a teacher, a low-income housing developer, a U.S. Senate aide, and a public interest lawyer for the state.
As the Attorney General’s top consumer lawyer, Josh has helped accomplish the following:

Tackling Predatory Lenders:

• Negotiated a $22 million settlement to provide refunds to people who borrowed from a major subprime mortgage lender – the largest state consumer protection case in North Carolina history.
• Chased all payday lenders out of North Carolina; they charged financially strapped working people interest rates on loans of more than 500%, rate that would make even loan sharks blush.
• Helped enact strong laws to protect subprime home loan borrowers.

Fighting Identity Theft:

• Helped enact the Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005 to give consumers more tools to protect themselves from thieves and to require government and businesses to do a better job of safeguarding our personal information.
• Helped develop an Identity Theft education program that the Federal Trade Commission touted as a national model.

Hanging Up on Telemarketers:

• Helped to enact North Carolina’s Do Not Call law to give every one of us the legal right not to accept telemarketing calls.
• Oversaw dozens of settlements totaling more than one million dollars enforcing the law against violators.
• Oversaw initiatives and educational efforts to protect vulnerable senior citizens from scammers.

Before joining the Attorney General’s office, Josh worked with Senator John Edwards for four years. First, Josh managed Senator Edwards’ successful campaign to unseat an incumbent Republican Senator in 1998. Then, Josh served the state as a top Senate aide in Washington, DC for two years, helping to secure needed redevelopment funds for eastern North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Floyd.

After graduating in 1995 from Harvard University with degrees in law and public policy, Josh worked with economic development nonprofit organizations in Raleigh and Durham. With the Self-Help Credit Union, Josh helped transform drug houses in Durham’s Walltown neighborhood into single family homes and restore the dilapidated, historic Mercy Hospital in Wilson as a small business incubator. Josh also raised capital for minority credit unions across the state to reinvest in and strengthen their communities.

Josh earned his college degree with highest honors from Dartmouth College in 1988. For the next two years, he lived in Harare, Zimbabwe teaching high school English and economics to disabled veterans.

Josh and his wife Anna Harris Stein have been married for 11 years. Anna, born in Elkin and raised in Winston-Salem, is a lawyer who mediates disputes and is active in their kids’ schools. They have three children – Sam (8), Adam (6), and Leah (3) – and two pound pups. Sam and Adam attend a Wake County public elementary school. Josh and Anna both attended North Carolina public schools.

Josh is co-chairing the Capital Campaign for Interact, Wake County’s domestic violence/sexual assault organization, so it can move into the former YWCA building on Oberlin Road and create a national model program. He and Anna are members of Temple Beth Or. He enjoys playing soccer, coaching his children's recreational basketball and soccer teams, participating in Y Guides with his boys, biking and watching college basketball.

Highlights

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