Charis L. Johnson has practiced law for over 30 years and just recently retired from the Law Office of Nancy W. Phillips staff counsel for Allstate, Encompass and Esurance Insurance Companies. She worked with the firm for 21 years. As trial counsel, she was responsible for defending personal injury cases in mostly 14 counties in the Atlanta Metropolitan area, as well as throughout the state of Georgia. The cases ranged from soft tissue to complex injuries. During her tenure with the firm, Ms. Johnson tried nearly 200 jury trials to verdict as first chair.

Before the Law Office of Nancy W. Phillips, Ms. Johnson worked briefly in private practice and handled a variety of legal matters, including landlord and tenant, personal injury, workers’ compensation, contract dispute, and family law matters. Prior to that, Ms. Johnson worked the Atlanta Housing Authority, which at that time was the fifth largest public housing authority in the nation. While at the Authority, Ms. Johnson headed the dispossessory unit, providing legal advice and counsel to both the Housing and Section 8 departments, defending all of the workers’ compensation cases, and providing training to the public housing managers and other staff.

Ms. Johnson is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta where she majored in Political Science and minored in Sociology. She attended Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. where she received her Juris Doctorate degree.

Ms. Johnson is active in many local voluntary bar associations. In 1998, she served as President of the Gate City Bar Association, the oldest voluntary bar association in the southeast for African American attorneys and a National Bar Association (NBA) affiliate chapter. Ms. Johnson has been active in the NBA for over 20 years and served in various positions, including two terms in 2002 and 2005 as the Regional XI Director, which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia. In 2007, she co-chaired the local planning committee that hosted the 82^nd Annual National Bar Association Convention and Exhibits in Atlanta. As a result of Ms. Johnson’s leadership and tenacity, the local planning committee assisted the NBA in raising over $1 million dollars for the organization’s convention that year.