HUNTINGTON – Attorney Christopher J. Plybon, a partner at law firm Dinsmore & Shohl’s Huntington office, has joined the select few to be named a West Virginia Bar Foundation Fellow.
Plybon received a phone call earlier this year to let him know he would soon become a Fellow.
“Tom Tinder, executive director of the Foundation, called me to let me know I had been selected,” Plybon told The West Virginia Record. “I was surprised and honored to have been selected. The Bar Foundation does outstanding, important work as a philanthropic arm of the West Virginia Bar and I am humbled to be recognized.”
Plybon, along with 16 other attorneys, were honored at the annual Bar Foundation Fellows Dinner on April 27. Only 300 attorneys have received the honor during the program's 19 years. According to its website, the Foundation selects only “lawyers whose professional, public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the welfare of their communities and honorable service to the legal profession.”
“I have tried to treat the practice of law as a profession in the face of growing commoditization,” Plybon said. “In my practice, I have been privileged to have been involved in a number of significant economic development projects in Huntington and the surrounding areas, such as the development of Pullman Square in Huntington. I worked with the State Bar’s continuing legal education committee for a number of years and have tried to be available to mentor new attorneys in our firm.
“More recently, I have been honored to serve as a board member for the Foundation for the Tri-State Community, a philanthropic organization that facilitates hundreds of grants and programs in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio. It’s an organization that does great work that in many ways mirrors in the community at large the work of the Bar Foundation.”
Though Plybon earned the honor, he is appreciative of those who have supported him over the years, as well as the Bar Foundation.
“I have been fortunate to have been able to continue to practice in the same office in which I started in 1983,” he said. “My colleagues in the commercial department - Dan Konrad, Schott Sheets, Tom Gilpin, Tom Murray and many others - have provided great counsel, friendship, and unwavering support for which I will always be grateful.
“I would simply thank the Bar Foundation for selecting me as a Fellow. I look forward to continuing to support the Foundation’s efforts in the future.”