The Virginia Bar Association installed Victor O. Cardwell as its 2022 president Friday, Jan. 21, during its virtual Annual Meeting. He is co-chair of Woods Rogers PLC’s labor and employment practice team as well as chairman of the firm’s board of directors. He is based in Roanoke, Virginia, and is the seventh Woods Rogers attorney to serve as president of the VBA, the largest statewide voluntary bar in Virginia.

Cardwell, the first Black president of the membership organization for lawyers and judges formed in 1888, succeeds Richard H. Ottinger, a partner at Vandeventer Black LLP in Norfolk, Virginia. Ottinger became the immediate past president of the VBA.

“Make no mistake, I know how many great lawyers, Black and otherwise, have deserved this honor in the past and my goal is to make sure that more diverse attorneys become involved in the VBA and take advantage of the benefits as have I,” the VBA’s 134th president told members and guests in a Zoom call after two days of educational programming for lawyers. “I am a better lawyer because of my association with the VBA. I want each lawyer in Virginia – regardless of race, gender identity or orientation, socio-economic status, geographic location or any other factor – to consider the VBA as a home for them.”

Toward that end, Cardwell will appoint members to a new committee of the VBA, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which Ottinger established in 2021.

(Editor’s Note: This article was first published on VBA.org)