Perez Morris is proud to announce that Charity C. Hyde has been named Chief Diversity Officer. With the creation of this new role, the women-owned firm continues to focus on providing opportunities for the advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal industry and in our communities.
Charity is an active champion of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and within her community. She is an active member of the Defense Research Institute’s (DRI) Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee, as well as the DRI Diversity for Success Seminar and Corporate Expo Planning Committee. She serves as the Marketing Chair for both. Charity also serves as a mentor for the DRI Diverse Rainmaker Mentoring Program in which ten attorneys with no more than ten years of civil litigation experience are selected for the program. Each mentee is paired with a corporate counsel mentor, as well as a DRI Diversity & Inclusion senior committee member mentor. Charity is also an active member of the National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association’s (NRRDA) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, as well the National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA), the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF) – where she serves on the Insurance PAC Committee, the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), the International Aviation Women’s Association (IAWA), the Association of Professional Insurance Women (APIW), and the Women in Insurance Global Network.
Charity believes that community service is an important part of a lawyer’s life and is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). The ABF Fellows serve as stewards of the American Bar Foundation, a nonprofit research organization with a mission to serve the legal profession and the public, through empirical research, publications, and programs that advance justice and the understanding of law. The Fellows comprise a global honorary society of lawyers, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the profession and service to society. Membership requires nomination and vetting, and is limited to one percent of the lawyers admitted to practice in the United States and its territories and to a limited number of lawyers in international jurisdictions.
Charity Hyde has extensive experience successfully defending companies in a variety of areas including aviation, premises liability, insurance fraud investigation, motor vehicle liability, product liability, and environmental and toxic tort litigation. She has a long history of leading multi-attorney teams in the representation of airlines, airports, financial institutions, retailers, restaurants, food manufacturers, municipalities, and large manufacturing clients in complex, high-exposure, and multi-district litigation. Her extensive defense litigation expertise spanning over two decades includes arbitrations and mediations, as well as trying bench and jury trials successfully to verdict.
