Dietz grew up in a small Pennsylvania Dutch family with roots in the mountains of north central Pennsylvania. He is a Lutheran. He comes from a family of railroad and telephone workers and was the first in his family to attend college.[3]
Dietz handled a number of high-profile appeals in private practice. He argued at the Supreme Court of the United States in Abramski v. United States, 134 S.Ct. 2259 (2014),[4] a prominent gun law case that addressed the scope of the straw man purchaser doctrine. Dietz also represented a class of hundreds of thousands of Native American in several appeals in the Cobell v. Salazar (1996) litigation involving the U.S. government's mismanagement of Indian trust money.
Dietz previously served as Vice Chair of the North Carolina Bar Association's Appellate Practice Section and currently serves on the Appellate Section Council and the Appellate Rules Committee. In 2013, he was appointed to a four-year term on the North Carolina Courts Commission, a group of judges, lawyers, legislators, and private citizens who study and recommend changes to the court system. He is a permanent member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference and a member of the Appellate Judges Conference of the American Bar Association. He is also a member of the Chief Justice Joseph Branch chapter of the American Inns of Court.[3]
Dietz is a North Carolina board certified specialist in Appellate Practice and one of only 27 board certified specialists in North Carolina.[5] He was one of only two appellate specialists on the 15-member North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Awards and honors
Dietz was named one of "40 Leaders Under Forty" by the Triad Business Journal in 2014.[6]
Dietz was listed in the 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions of North Carolina Super Lawyers magazine as a "Rising Star" in the area of Appellate Law.[7]
Dietz received the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from Shippensburg University in 2014.[8]
