Christian & Small is pleased to announced that Partner Sharon D. Stuart has been elected to the Samford University Board of Trustees. Stuart is filling the unexpired term of Gary Fenton, who retired last year as pastor of Dawson Baptist Church and is now working for Samford as an advancement officer. Prior to her election to the Board of Trustees, she served on the university’s Board of Overseers.
Stuart joins the following nine other members of the Samford University Board of Trustees, who were recently re-elected to an additional four-year term: Karon O. Bowdre, federal judge, Birmingham; Victor M. Brown, an executive with the Birmingham Business Alliance; Robert Holmes Jr. of Birmingham, retired executive with Alabama Power; Don Kilgore of Jasper; Sherri P. McKean, board chair, Children First Foundation, Montgomery; Garry Ray Pearman, Huntsville businessman; and Roderic G. Steakley, attorney, Brownsboro.
Also joining Stuart as newly elected members of Samford’s Board of Trustees are Andy Birchfield, an attorney with Beasley Allen Law in Montgomery; Albert L. Shumaker, an attorney in Centre, Alabama, who is filling the unexpired term of former Alabama Gov. Albert Brewer, who died earlier this year; and Danny Wood, senior pastor of Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Vestavia Hills.
Stuart is a founding partner of Christian & Small and has been with the firm since 1993. She holds an AV® Preeminent Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell and handles complex and class action business, insurance and product liability cases in the state and federal courts and in arbitration. Stuart has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America – garnering 2018 “Lawyer of the Year” honors for insurance law; the Top 50 Women Mid-South Super Lawyers, and was named by the Birmingham Business Journal as one of its 2017 “Women to Watch.”
Stuart is active in the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Defense Research Institute, and the American Inns of Court. She is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Alabama Law Foundation, and she currently serves as President of the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association. Stuart also serves on the Board of Directors for M-Power Ministries, is a member of the Leadership Birmingham Class of 2012, and is Vice-Chair on the Friends Advisory Board for WBHM Public Radio 90.3, Birmingham’s National Public Radio affiliate.