NC Eviction Question - Out of State Landlord

[Gavin Swain]

Hi, long time fan of BiggerPockets as a RE investing resource; first post!

I have a handful of SFH investment properties in the Raleigh area and the tenant in my latest property has been late on payments the past couple of months. Have had to send multiple quit notices and been on the brink of going down the summary ejectment route before payment finally came in at the 11th hour, so just trying to get ahead of this before the cycle inevitably repeats.

While the process itself looks pretty straightforward, since I'm out of state I reached out to a local landlord-tenant attorney for assistance, but he told me that I would have to physically be present at court in the event that the tenant showed up and contested since the attorney  "would not have personal knowledge of those facts, and an affidavit from [me] would not be sufficient". I hadn't seen anything suggesting that the landlord (or PM) needed to be personally present in other forum posts, so thought I'd ask the community to verify or refute this assertion?

Also, if anyone happens to have a recommendation for an attorney who would potentially be willing to handle a Wake County eviction for a small investor such as myself, I'd gladly take it in case it turns out that I need to go down that road. I had seen only one specific recommendation in a prior post and the other couple of attorneys that I contacted only seemed interested in dealing with larger (e.g. PM) clients.