ATLANTA – The Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism has honored Atlanta partner S. Wade Malone with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his service to the profession and the Atlanta community. The award, given as part of the 22nd Annual Justice Robert Benham Awards for Community Service, recognizes lawyers and judges in Georgia who have made significant contributions to their communities and who demonstrate the positive contributions of members of the Bar beyond their legal or official work, according to the commission.

Throughout his career, Malone has selflessly devoted countless volunteer hours, boundless energy, and extraordinary passion to the Atlanta legal community and community at large, the commission wrote. "In both words and deeds, Malone represents the very best the legal profession has to offer,” said one of Malone's endorsers. For example, in 1993, Malone and others partnered with the Atlanta Bar Association to create the Summer Law Internship Program (SLIP). Now 30 years later, this innovative program has provided over 850 paid internships to Atlanta area high school students, provided rigorous legal education, and connected interns with lifelong mentors. During the internship, the students receive training not just about the law but about life skills – public speaking, written advocacy, respect for the Rule of Law, and professionalism. Forty-five former Atlanta Bar Association Summer Law Interns have gone to law school. Seventeen former Interns are presently in law school.

Over the first 29 years that SLIP has been in existence, Malone has served as a co-chair of the program – even in 2003 through 2004, when he also served as president of the Atlanta Bar Association. In 2016, Malone also helped launch the Highest Heights Forever Initiative to provide former Atlanta Bar Association Summer Law Interns with funding for LSAT prep and bar exam courses to support their pursuit of becoming attorneys.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest recognition given by the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, sponsor of the Justice Robert Benham Awards for Community Service. The award is reserved for a lawyer or judge who, in addition to meeting the criteria for receiving the Justice Robert Benham Award for Community Service, has demonstrated an extraordinarily long and distinguished commitment to volunteer participation in the community throughout his or her legal career.

View the commission's profile of Malone

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