The Oklahoma Bar Journal September 2025

for the practice she has had from inception. While her law prac tice has always been focused on business or commercial law, she is unique in not only representing clients in complex commercial liti gation but also in a broad range of commercial transactions. She has also been honored to represent clients in defending their reli gious freedoms and was proud to provide pro bono counsel to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board in a case that was recently heard by the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Plaxico has been a leader in Oklahoma state and county bar associations and is a member and past president of the Luther Bohanon chapter of the American Inns of Court, on whose Executive Board she currently serves. Prior to forming Plaxico Law Firm PLLC, she was a partner in several medium-

sized firms and a large law firm, where she served on the Board of Directors. Public service has been a very important part of her career. Among other things, she served a three-year term as chair of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System (OIDS), beginning when the failures documented in John Grisham’s book, The Innocent Man, existed and quickly led a turnaround to a system that appropriately fulfilled the accused’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, along with navigat ing the challenges faced by OIDS when the agency was appointed to provide counsel to defendant Terry Nichols for his state trial relating to his role in the Murrah Building bombing. She also served nine years as a member and chair of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

Cheryl Plaxico Cheryl Plaxico is pas sionate about the practice of law. She is real izing her child hood dream of being a lawyer. That aspiration

came about from her observations of three lawyers from the “Greatest Generation”: her neighbor, retired Judge Donald Worthington, and family friends Clee Fitzgerald and Winfrey Houston. Those three attorneys personally encouraged her ambition and, by their actions, demonstrated the profound posi tive impact lawyers could have on their communities and society as a whole. Ms. Plaxico is now in her 43rd year of achieving her youthful aim and has maintained the passion

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL