Law: THE HON. S. BERNARD GOODWYN
CHIEF JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF VIRGINIA, RICHMOND
Published
Growing up in rural Southampton County in the 1960s, Goodwyn recalls how his parents sacrificed to give him opportunities. In return, he gave it his all — and Goodwyn excelled at just about everything he tried. He was a football star, student body president, valedictorian and first chair tenor saxophone player for the tri-county band. Harvard University recruited him to play football, and he graduated magna cum laude.
Goodwyn received his law degree from the University of Virginia, then spent about a decade in private practice at Willcox & Savage. He left litigation in 1994 to join the faculty at U.Va., and for 10 years, he served as a circuit judge in Chesapeake. In 2007, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, and in January, Goodwyn became its chief justice, succeeding Donald W. Lemons, who retired at the end of 2021.
Goodwyn wrote the court’s majority opinion last year allowing the state to remove Richmond’s Robert E. Lee monument, affirming that a joint resolution passed by lawmakers in 1889 to maintain the Confederate statue could not “perpetually bind future administrations.”
