Andrew J. Savage III, South Carolina Sustaining Life Fellow, Receives Griffin Bell Award

April 1, 2019, Fellows in the news

Andrew J. Savage III, South Carolina Sustaining Life Fellow, received the Griffin Bell Award for Courageous Advocacy from the American College of Trial Lawyers. The award honors trial lawyers who have persevered in the pursuit of an important cause despite substantial personal danger, fear, unpopularity, opposition or other extreme difficulties. In its 54 years of existence, the award has been extended previously only 14 times.

According to the award committee’s nomination, Mr. Savage’s cause is representing extraordinarily unpopular clients despite substantial opposition or other extreme difficulties. The nomination said, “In the finest traditions of the role of a trial lawyer in a free society, Andy has unhesitatingly defended unpopular and seemingly indefensible case.” They include Michael Slager, the South Carolina police officer who was videotaped shooting a defenseless African American man eight times in the back; representation of an accused terrorist, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri; three survivors of the Emmanuel Church shooting; and Sametta Hayward, who left two children to die in a car of heat exposure.

College President Jeffrey S. Leon, LSM said, “The College is pleased to confer this most prestigious award on Mr. Savage who deserves to be recognized for the work he has done throughout his career to preserve the rule of law and advance the administration of justice. He is only the fifteenth trial lawyer to be recognized by the College in this way and we are particularly pleased to recognize one of our own Fellows.”