Dewey Oxner Honored

G. Dewey Oxner Jr., a noted trial attorney and Shareholder Emeritus of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., received the 2009 DuRant Distinguished Public Service Award.

This annual recognition by the South Carolina Bar Foundation is the most prestigious statewide award members of the Bar can bestow on a fellow attorney. Oxner, who practices in the Firm’s Greenville office, accepted the award at the South Carolina Bar’s Annual Convention’s plenary luncheon on Friday, January 22, 2010, at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort. The DuRant Award was presented by SC Bar Foundation President George M. Hearn Jr.

Oxner, who served as President of the South Carolina Bar (2001-2000), is recognized nationally for excellence in defense of medical malpractice, products liability and consumer litigation cases. He has served as a trial lawyer for more than four decades and successfully has tried more than 100 cases to jury verdict. He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America® since its inception and was recognized as the “Senior Statesman” among all South Carolina litigators by Chambers USA – The Client’s Guide. He was included in the 2009 and 2008 editions of South Carolina Super Lawyers™ – Personal Injury Defense: Medical Malpractice.

A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers where he served as State Chairman (1992-94), Oxner is a former State Chair of the American Board of Trial Advocacy (ABOTA). He is admitted to practice in South Carolina, South Carolina Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, U.S. District Court, South Carolina, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oxner currently Co-chairs with South Carolina Supreme Court Justice John Kittredge the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism. He was appointed in 2000.

Oxner received the Greenville County Bar Association’s highest honor, the Tommy Thomason Award in 2007; Oxner served as this bar’s President in 1985. The University of South Carolina School of Law Alumni Association’s Compleat Lawyer (Platinum) Award, which recognizes high standards of professionalism and performance, was presented to Oxner in 2005. Oxner was also presented the Jeter E. Rhodes, Jr. Trial Lawyer of the Year Award (2003) from the American Board of Trial Advocates and the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association’s Robert W. Hemphill Award (1993).

A former board member and treasurer of The Defense Research Institute, Inc., and former President of the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys’ Association, Oxner served as Managing Partner (1995-1998) of Haynsworth Marion McKay & Guérard, LLP, a predecessor of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, PA, in Greenville.

Anne S. Ellefson, the Firm’s current Managing Director, said, “Dewey is an extraordinary lawyer who is dedicated to the practice of law and to maintaining the reputation and integrity of our profession. He serves as a wonderful role model and mentor for all of us with his collegiality and his dedicated service to the legal profession. His high ethical standards are evident in the way that he conducts his practice and his life with an integrity that is an example to all of us.”

Also active in the community, Oxner is a former board member of The Palmetto Conservation Foundation and now serves as Board Chair of Trustees of Faith Memorial Chapel in Cedar Mountain, NC.

Oxner joins four Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd lawyers who previously received this lifetime achievement recognition of the legal profession, the DuRant Distinguished Public Service Award:

·      Eugene N. (Nick) Zeigler, Jr., Florence, SC (2004)

·      H. Simmons Tate, Jr., Charleston, SC (2001)

·      Julius W. (Jay) McKay, Columbia, SC (1997)

·      The late Charles W. Knowlton, Columbia, SC (1988)

Oxner received his J.D., from the University of South Carolina in 1959, and his B.A., from

Washington and Lee University in 1956, where he served on the Honor Council. He, and his wife, Louise, are the parents of three children.

About the DuRant Award

Selection criteria include meritorious service to the law and the community. Established in 1980 to honor living members of the South Carolina Bar, the DuRant Award is considered the most prestigious statewide recognition that is bestowed upon an attorney. The recipient is nominated and selected by his or her professional peers. The Foundation established the award in memory of Charlton DuRant, a well-known Manning attorney who served as state senator and special associate justice of the SC Supreme Court.