The Virginia Bar Association featured two justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia on its 2025 Annual Meeting banquet stage: Chief Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn, who received the VBA’s highest honor, and Justice Teresa M. Chafin, for the unveiling of the VBA-commissioned portrait.

Distinguished Service Award Honoree: S. Bernard Goodwyn

Goodwyn is the latest recipient of the VBA’s Gerald L. Baliles Distinguished Service Award. The honor is given in recognition and appreciation of exceptional service and contributions to the bar and public at large.

“Chief Justice Goodwyn exemplifies the values that this award is designed to honor,” 2024 VBA President W. Ryan Snow said. “He is a humble but giant force for good in Virginia, and he has been a strong leader in the push for pro bono service and equal access to justice for decades.”

The chief justice is the former longtime co-chair of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission, a group created by the Supreme Court 10 years ago. Goodwyn’s interest in promoting access to justice and his commitment to the rule of law are longstanding. In fact, in 2017 the VBA presented him with its Summer Meeting Award for just those pursuits.

Goodwyn has served on the bench for nearly three decades. He joined the Supreme Court in 2007, and his colleagues selected him as chief justice in 2022. As chief, he presided over last year’s Chief Justice’s Pro Bono Summit, a biennial event organized by the VBA Pro Bono Council to celebrate advances in access to justice and to address continuing needs.

Goodwyn recently announced plans to retire, effective Jan. 1, 2026.

The VBA created the Gerald L. Baliles Distinguished Service Award in 1988. The first recipient was Lewis F. Powell Jr., who later served 15 years as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Since the award’s inception 36 years ago, it has been given just 19 times. In 2008, the VBA renamed the honor as a tribute to the former Virginia governor.

In addition to Baliles, previous recipients of the VBA’s Distinguished Service Award include former Govs. A. Linwood Holton Jr. and L. Douglas Wilder, Chief Justices Donald W. Lemons and Cynthia D. Kinser, Dean Emerson G. Spies and longtime UVA law professor A.E. Dick Howard.

Portrait Presentation

Justice Chafin said she took her first glimpse of the portrait on stage at the unveiling.

She was elected to the Supreme Court in 2019 after serving 10 years as a judge on the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Chief Judge Marla Graff Decker of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, with whom Chafin served, introduced the justice for the banquet presentation.

Chafin’s judicial portrait continues a VBA legacy. The VBA commissions portraits of new justices and unveils them at a VBA statewide meeting. The VBA donates the paintings to the commonwealth, where they are cared for by the Library of Virginia and hung near the justices’ chambers. Upon a justice’s retirement, that portrait is then hung in the courtroom.

The VBA’s efforts to commemorate Virginia justices began with its portraits committee in 1928. This group encouraged judges’ families and others to donate portraits to the court’s collection. VBA-commissioned portraits started in 1958 and to date more than 25 have been added to the collection.

Today, all but a handful of the jurists who have served on the Supreme Court of Virginia since 1779 are represented in the collection.