I became a lawyer to give people a voice, and I found my own in the Charleston County Public Defender’s Office. For seven years, I represented South Carolinians who couldn’t afford an attorney: more than a thousand clients, dozens of cases tried to verdict. You learn a lot about the law in a courtroom. You learn even more about people.

The clients who changed me were the kids. I represented children who had been abused, neglected, and written off, and one of them mentioned he didn’t have a single book to read. So we fixed that – a book drive that put more than 4,000 books into juvenile facilities in Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville. Later, when I saw the conditions inside the Charleston County Juvenile Detention Center, I helped bring the civil rights lawsuit that closed the fifty year old facility for good.

That case brought me into private practice, and it still shapes who I represent: people who’ve been seriously hurt or let down by a negligent driver, a dangerous property, or a medical system that failed them when they needed it most. My clients are rarely the most powerful people in the room. That’s exactly why I take their cases.

When I’m not in a courtroom, you’ll find me in Mount Pleasant, where I live and work. My family’s roots run deep in Charleston. It’s important to me to give back to the community that’s invested in mine.