As the fourth graduate of Birmingham-Southern College to serve as president of the Birmingham Bar Association, Charles Fry ’95 is proud to have strong roots in Birmingham.

“Birmingham is a diamond in the rough city,” Fry says. “You can have a great quality of life and a sophisticated professional life. Not many markets offer these things in the way we do, and we are still in the process of maturing and growing from the past.”

BSC graduates Alan Rogers ’77, Bruce Rogers ’80, and Carol Ann Smith ’71 preceded Fry in leading the Birmingham Bar as president, and he has continued their positive influence on the professional organization.

As the current General Counsel of the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation, P.C., Fry often finds health at the top of his mind. He saw an immediate need for improvement in lawyer wellness, as the profession correlates with high levels of alcohol abuse and suicide rates.

“It is important that we first acknowledge that this is a problem, and then that we deal with it,” Fry says.

He has established a lawyer wellness committee for the Birmingham Bar charged with finding ways to incorporate activities that help manage the stress involved with being a lawyer.

Fry is the first in-house lawyer to be elected president – something he has not taken lightly. He has made recruiting in-house lawyers to the Bar a priority.

Under Fry’s leadership, the UA Health Services Foundation has added about 300 physicians and has expanded throughout the state, opening locations in Anniston, Montgomery, Florence, and Mobile.

One project that has been specifically meaningful to Fry is building the first proton therapy facility in the state at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which can provide cancer patients with state-of-the-art, non-invasive treatment. Fry worked with the department of radiation oncology in developing the project from the ground up.

Fry says that everything he has done in Birmingham was set in motion during his time at Birmingham-Southern.

“I owe so much to attending Birmingham-Southern College,” Fry says. “It was a critical education for me; it gave me confidence in myself – which I sorely lacked. It was the challenge of learning that presented itself everyday by my professors that prepared the way for me to believe in myself. This ultimately led to me taking on leadership roles.”

After graduating from BSC in 1995 with a philosophy degree, Fry worked as a paralegal at Bradley Arant Rose & White LLP. He then attended the University of Alabama School of Law and was a clerk for Judge Arthur J. Hanes, Jr. Fry then worked at Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose LLP, where he became a partner.

His work in Birmingham goes beyond the professional sphere. Fry has served on the board of the Youth Leadership Forum since 1999. The organization, modeled after Leadership Birmingham, provides opportunities for high school students to learn about what is happening in the community.

Fry’s mindset on service is out of a genuine love for his community. “We as professionals owe it to the community to give back, as we have been blessed with important tools to provide the community with something it didn’t have before.”

This story was published in the Fall/Winter 2019 issue of ’Southern, BSC’s alumni magazine.

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