Charlie Bliss, champion of poor, disabled, dies suddenly

“Charlie was deeply committed to helping the poor, helping the vulnerable, and protecting people who were experiencing inequality and injustice,” said friend and colleague Bryan Stevenson, a nationally recognized public interest lawyer, author, and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. “More than anybody I know, he did not shout about it, did not preach about it, did not posture about it. He just did the work. It was in his heart. It was in his head.”

Charlie Bliss, an Atlanta lawyer devoted to social justice, a mentor to young colleagues and a champion Ultimate Frisbee player, died Feb. 20 while vacationing with his wife, Lisa Bliss, in Australia. He was 66.

The cause of death was a catastrophic brain hemorrhage, his wife said.

A celebration of his life is planned for March 29 in the auditorium at The Paideia School, where his only daughter, Laurel, graduated, at 1509 Ponce de Leon Ave. in Atlanta.

Born in Asheboro, North Carolina, he was raised by parents with strong values about taking care of the less fortunate and serving their communities. His mother led efforts in North Carolina to promote passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1970s and instilled in her son a deep respect for equality, his wife said.

While attending Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Bliss was introduced to Ultimate Frisbee by his twin sister, Katherine, who was attending the University of North Carolina.

Credit: Roni Robbins

Credit: Roni Robbins

“He just loved it with a passion, and he was really good at it,” said Lisa Bliss, a clinical law professor at Georgia State University and his wife of nearly 33 years. “He was just a superior athlete, great in basketball, tennis, and golf, too.”

At Harvard University Law School, Bliss played on the school’s Ultimate Frisbee team, balancing his studies with weekend tournaments. His skills led him to compete later in national championships with Atlanta’s Chain Lightning team and to win a world title in 1993 with the national team Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.

Bliss made lifelong friends at Harvard, including Stevenson. The two were roommates for several years after moving to Atlanta for work — Bliss with Legal Aid, Stevenson with the Southern Center for Human Rights.

After Harvard, Bliss accepted a fellowship in Jackson, Mississippi, where he worked on a lawsuit that showed the state had spied on thousands of people while trying to suppress civil rights initiatives, such as school desegregation and Black voter registration drives.

As a staff attorney, Bliss worked on Olmstead v. L.C., a case that some say did for people with mental disabilities what Brown vs. The Board of Education did for Black students. A 1999 ruling in Olmstead led to thousands of mentally disabled Georgians leaving institutions for community-based programs.

Steve Gottlieb, who ran Atlanta Legal Aid for more than 40 years, said Bliss was involved in every significant piece of work that Legal Aid did for the past 20 years, including challenging unfair garnishments and fighting for residents of extended-stay motels.

“He was just core to the program,” Gottlieb said. Bliss retired not long ago.

Friends said they were “devastated” and “heartbroken” over Bliss’ death.

New York Times bestselling author David Gessner, who played Ultimate Frisbee with Bliss at Harvard, mentioned Bliss in his memoir of the sport, “Ultimate Glory,” and recalled a team reunion where the two shared beers and visited one of their old haunts. “The best part of the reunion was getting to see him again,” he said.

Atlanta attorney Lindsey Siegel faced a major case fighting for unemployment benefits for victims of domestic violence who had to quit their jobs for their own safety, and Siegel sought his help. Bliss and his team helped her strategize and prepare.

She won her case and later went to work for Bliss at Legal Aid.

“The culture at Legal Aid, which he embodied, meant new attorneys got to argue their own cases — not like at a law firm where you hand off to a senior partner the major hearings,” Siegel said.

Wingo Smith, an attorney now in private practice in Decatur, recalled pairing with Bliss to intervene on behalf of Medicaid and food stamp recipients, including one who was blind, who kept getting kicked off the program for failing to follow instructions mailed to them by the state. “Charlie was a big champion of those clients, especially Legal Aid clients who ultimately don’t have other places to go for help,” Smith said.

Lisa Bliss said her husband “just had a love for life.

“He was constantly singing and dancing around the house,” she said. “He was a very, very joyful person. He was devoted to me, and we had a very beautiful relationship and life together.”

At work, she said, Bliss “was just absolutely devoted to making sure that he worked on cases and projects that would impact the largest number of people in terms of protecting the rights of low-income people.”

At home, he started each day by bringing her coffee in bed.

He loved bird watching, collecting arrowheads, reading, playing golf, staying fit, surf guitar music and traveling. He and only child Laurel had a tradition of planning and baking an ornate cake every year for her birthday.

Lisa Bliss never had to look things up; Charlie knew the answers.

“If I needed to know the definition of a word, I would ask Charlie. Same for any piece of history,” she said. “He was really, really smart but humble. It’s hard to describe what a special person he was.”