BRLS Attorney Wins Top Pro Bono Award from American Bar Association

ROANOKE, VA (August 15, 2023).  Charles B. (Charlie) Phillips of Salem, Virginia, has received a 2023 Pro Bono Publico Award from the American Bar Association (ABA), the top honor given by the ABA in national recognition of pro bono volunteerism. He was recently presented the award at the 2023 ABA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, August 4, 2023. A video produced by the ABA for the presentation, featuring local judges and several of Mr. Phillips’ pro bono clients, can be viewed on the ABA Center for Pro Bono channel on YouTube, see https://youtu.be/w39GUq3h0ck.

Phillips was nominated for the award by John Whitfield, executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services (BRLS), the legal aid society where Phillips donates his time helping legal aid clients. 

Since retiring from his law practice in 2018 at the age of 80, Phillips immediately began volunteering around 30 hours a week in the Roanoke office of BRLS. Since then, he has closed more than 1,500 cases, including over 200 in litigation. His efforts have resulted in recovering more than $450,000 in benefits for his clients, according to the nomination by Whitfield.

Phillips is a former Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Salem and maintained a private practice for 50 years.  He was born in Tazewell County, Virginia, attended Emory & Henry College on a football scholarship and attended the University of Richmond School of Law, graduating in 1963.

In addition to this national recognition, Phillips received the 2021 Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award from the Virginia State Bar. He was also the 2022 recipient of the Carl and Ruth Looney Humanitarian Award from Emory & Henry.

In the words of Robert Williams, an attorney with BRLS, “Charlie Phillips is the best of us.” Perhaps the most ringing endorsement for Phillips’s work, however, comes from a client who wrote, “Charlie Phillips saved my life. Were it not for his brilliant, tireless efforts, I would have become homeless and in all likelihood, died as a result. I will be grateful to him…forever. He is a noble gentleman.”

Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc. is a non-profit charitable civil legal aid society providing free legal assistance in civil matters of critical importance to low-income residents of the Shenandoah and Roanoke valleys.