Cleo Elaine Powell, a Virginia Supreme Court justice who in 2011 became the first and only African American woman to serve on the state’s high court in its 244-year history, has been named the 2023 recipient of the state bar’s Clarence M. Dunnaville Jr. Achievement Award.
The award honors a bar member for “setting an example that fellow members can emulate to meet the [state bar Diversity Conference’s] goal of fostering, encouraging, and facilitating diversity and inclusion in the bar, the judiciary, and the legal profession,” according to a state bar webpage describing the award.
