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Attorney Profile
ATTORNEY PROFILE By: Bill Haltom
Award Presenter Bill Vines Butler, Vines & Babb
On December 10, 2021, the Knoxville Bar Association presented its highest award, the Governors’ Award, to Charles W. Swanson. The award recognizes those attorneys who are perceived as role model attorneys and who command special respect from the association.
Through his work as an attorney, including as President of the Tennessee Bar Association, Charles has made many friends, including Bill Haltom and Bill Vines, who volunteered to write the following article to honor Charles:
Lawyers are leaders. We are leaders in the courtroom, the boardroom, in government, in business, in public agencies and private foundations.
But every once in awhile, we lawyers encounter a fellow or sister lawyer who is not just a leader, but an extraordinary one. A leader who shows us the way in action rather than words. A leader who is powerful because he or she transfers power to others. A leader who shows us what it looks like when we get it right.
Charles Swanson is such a leader. We witness his leadership every day in his work as Knoxville City Law Director. We have seen his leadership over the years on behalf of the Tennessee and Knoxville Bar Associations. We have seen role model leadership in Charles as a father, husband and mentor.
Charles was a leader long before we met him. At Pfeiffer University in North Carolina, Charles was a leader in the classroom, in student government, and on the baseball diamond. Charles was President of the Student Body, but the leadership role he most cherished was playing first base for the Pfeiffer Falcons! To quote Charles’ favorite line from the movie “Moneyball,” playing first base is “incredibly hard!” But Charles mastered it.
While Charles is a lifelong fan of the San Francisco Giants, his favorite MLB player is Freddie Freeman, the first baseman of the Atlanta Braves. Charles “plays” City Law Director and bar leader the way Freddie Freeman plays first base!
Charles is a leader as a teacher, notably over the years in the Tennessee Bar Leadership Law program (appropriately known as “T-BALL”), and as a visionary leader of the Knoxville and Tennessee Bar Associations. He is the only lawyer in Tennessee history to hold three of the most powerful leadership positions in the profession: President of the Tennessee Bar Association, President of the Knoxville Bar Association, and First Gentleman of the Tennessee Bar!
But Charles’ greatest leadership and contribution to legal profession has been as a father. He and Judge Pam produced two fabulous kids who are now, in Amanda Swanson’s words, “continuing the family business.” Both are graduates of UVA Law School. Son Reedy is now clerking for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, having previously clerked for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Daughter Amanda recently finished a clerkship for the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, and is now beginning her career as an attorney for the Justice Department in Washington, DC. She is also the author of “Full Court Press: How Pat Summitt, a High School Basketball Player, and a Legal Team Changed the Game.” Finally, Charles has been a mentor for many young lawyers and as a “Big Brother” in the Knoxville Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Charles “little brother”, Daryl Clemes, was once asked what Charles has meant to him. He said, “Charles has shown me what it looks like when you get it right!” Charles has done that for all of us who have been blessed to share with him a life in
the law.
He is a worthy recipient of the highest honor of the Knoxville Bar Association, the Governors’ Award.
