Partner Named Distinguished Pro Bono Fellow by ACTL

BCLP Partner Charlie Weiss has been recognized as a Distinguished Pro Bono Fellow by the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL). As part of this recognition, Charlie also was appointed to the college’s Distinguished Pro Bono Fellows Committee. 

A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, Charlie has more than 40 years’ experience in business and complex litigation. In addition to his busy practice, Charlie has led a number of high-profile Innocence Project pro bono teams for BCLP.

His extensive pro bono efforts were featured in the summer edition of the American College of Trial Lawyers’ Journal. Charlie took on his first Innocence Project case in 2006 – that of Josh Kezer, wrongly convicted in 1994 of the murder of Angela Lawless, despite no physical evidence of any kind linking him to the crime. That effort ended with Kezer being judicially declared innocent and freed from prison in 2009. Charlie and a BCLP team have gone on to obtain complete exoneration for three others: George Allen, Jr., after 30 years in prison; David Robinson, who spent 17 years in prison; and Donald “Doc” Nash, recently freed after 12 years in prison.

The success of these four innocence cases in the past 11 years led Charlie and his larger team from the St. Louis office to be named Missouri Lawyers of the Year in 2020 by Missouri Lawyers Weekly.