Mississippi Bar Celebrates Fred Banks’ Public Service and Civil Rights Work With Lifetime Achievement Award
JACKSON, Miss. — August 9, 2021 — Senior Partner Fred Banks accepted the Mississippi Bar’s 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award during The Mississippi Bar's Annual Business Session on July 16. The bar association honored him for his decades of legal work fighting for civil rights in private practice, through elected office and from the bench.
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes lawyers who have not only devoted themselves to serving the public, the legal field and the administration of justice, but have also made significant contributions to the American justice system and the legal profession. Fred exemplifies these principles.
After graduating second in his class from law school in 1968, he and his partners founded the first interracial law firm in Mississippi and served as local counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Voters elected Fred to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1975 and led him to two reelections. During his tenure there, he chaired the House Ethics Committee, the House Judiciary “B” Committee and the Legislative Black Caucus. In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter added Fred to the nine-member National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children, which improved how federal funds were spent to help students facing barriers to education stay on track in reading and math.
Fred served on the Mississippi Board of Bar Admissions from 1979-81. In 1985, he was appointed Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit Court District. In 1991, Mississippi’s Governor appointed Fred to fill an unexpired term on the Mississippi Supreme Court. He was elected to serve the rest of that term and won reelection in 1996.
In 2001, Fred stepped down from the Mississippi Supreme Court and joined Phelps. He continues to do pro bono work in civil rights cases. He also counsels clients through appellate litigation, commercial litigation and alternate dispute resolution. And he is as deeply rooted in the community now as ever, continuing to lead the NAACP National Board of Directors’ Legal Committee and the Capital City Convention Center Commission.
Read more about Fred’s life and work in our Access to Trailblazers series.
About Phelps Dunbar
Phelps is a full-service law firm of more than 300 attorneys. We blend valuable traditions and progressive ideas to foster a culture of collaboration among our lawyers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and London. Our six core practice groups — admiralty, business, health care, insurance, labor and employment, and litigation — work together to offer clients a progressive, diverse practice and partnership that handles a broad range of sophisticated business needs regionally, nationally, and internationally.
