A setback set stage for entrepreneur's empowerment

KE'AIRA WILSON-COX

Ke’Aira Wilson-Cox is owner of Wilson-Cox Paralegal Services.

Ke’Aira Wilson-Cox is a jack of many trades.

After a bad experience working as a legal assistant in Charlotte, the 20-year-old decided to not give up on her passion.

“Being a gay Black woman working in the legal, I can’t tell you how many times people threw food at me, called me dumb,” she said. “I stayed here six hours after all of you guys, as in attorneys, go to the bar and then here you are the next morning calling me from court ‘Where’s the effing file.’”

Wilson-Cox is now the owner of Wilson-Cox Paralegal Services which she founded in 2023.

“I took a little break and during my break I started having attorneys call me that I had worked with and be like ‘Hey I know you don’t work for XYZ anymore, but I have something that I want you to do for me,” she said.
“Here we are 2025. I am not doing this full-time. I have a list of attorneys that I contract with, and I do everything from family law so custody. I do criminal. Basically, anything from a traffic ticket to murder.”

Wilson-Cox said the death of her father Cedric in 2023 pushed her to chase after her dream.

“[He] really persuaded me to just go ahead and do it,” she said.

Wilson-Cox is a one-woman shop, but her wife helps as manager and bookkeeper. She also is trying to inspire people like her by employing interns.

The legal journey isn’t the only thing Wilson-Cox does to provide for her family. She owns Friendly Faces Painting, a face painting business, and coaches the bowling team at Johnson C. Smith University, her alma mater. Wilson-Cox was briefly an administrative assistant in JCSU’s athletics department but left shortly after her father died.

“I just felt like I wasn’t in the right place doing the right thing,” she said. “I love my school. I am a legacy student. Both my parents went to Smith, bit I felt like I was doing myself a disservice because athletics is not my dream.”

Wilson-Cox’s work has not gone unnoticed. She was in the 2024 cohort of JCSU’s 40 under 40, which honors alumni who are “change agents in their communities, leaders in their professions and loyal supporters of the university.”

“It was definitely a full circle moment because as you know, I bowled on the same team. I think also being the coach has been very much a full circle moment.”

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