About Ryan Bliss
Ryan Bliss is a Partner at the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, focused on workers' compensation law. He joined the firm in 2012 and has more than 13 years of experience. He works out of the Durham, North Carolina office.
Bliss earned his Bachelor of Arts in English magna cum laude from North Carolina State University in 2005 and his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2008. He interned with North Carolina Advocates for Justice during college.
He is admitted to the North Carolina Bar and is a North Carolina State Bar Board Certified Specialist in Workers' Compensation Law.
His honors include selection to the North Carolina Lawyers Weekly Top 20 Managing Partners (2025), Best Lawyers in America for Workers' Compensation Law - Claimants (2025-2026), and Super Lawyers Rising Star (2018).
His publications and speaking engagements include "How 2 top plaintiff firms went AI-native in 90 days" CLE webinar (January 2026), "The impact of AI's ongoing evolution on NC's legal landscape" in The Carolina Journal (2025), commentary on leveraging technology in workers' compensation practice in NC Lawyers Weekly (August 2024), and "Workers' Compensation for the Undocumented Worker" in Trial Briefs Magazine (January 2018).
Proven verdicts and settlements at Law Offices of James Scott Farrin
These results are credited to Law Offices of James Scott Farrin. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
Farrin co-lead counsel Gary Jackson won an $8 million class settlement for roughly 6,500 residents forced from their homes by the 2022 ammonium nitrate fire at the Winston Weaver fertilizer plant, with a separate $4.5 million for affected businesses.
A Johnston County jury awarded $5.1 million to the family of Joan Drake, killed when a driver going 98 mph struck her car as she turned into a Clayton Walmart, after Farrin attorneys Coleman Cowan and Donald Clack tried the case without putting on a single medical bill.
A mother and her two teenage daughters were seriously hurt in an October 2018 head-on crash on North Carolina Highway 49 with a company truck driven by an unlicensed man. After the injury claims were resolved by agreement, a federal court held that the construction company's commercial excess policy covered the accident and that interest was owed on top. The Fourth Circuit affirmed in August 2025, and the family's total recovery reached $2,861,458.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
