Tag: writing

BEING A FLEDGLING LAWYER

June 24th, 2026

One of my favorite things to do, now that I’m retired, is watch the fledglings learning to fly, frantically fluttering their wings trying to land on the birdfeeders in our garden. They remind me I was once a fledging lawyer frantically trying to fly myself. I was first shoved from the nest by Jack Swerling who sent me out on my own to cover a preliminary hearing in an Assault and Battery with Intent to Kill, ABWIK, case.

        The hearing was scheduled to be heard before Magistrate Mattie Simmons in the Olympia Magisterial District located on Bluff Road out past Williams Brice football stadium. I was given the assignment and handed Jack’s file five minutes before leaving and learned the client was accused of discharging a shot gun into the open driver’s side window of the victim’s pick-up truck. Jack’s notes said the victim was beating a hasty retreat after having been caught cheating in a poker game and our client merely fired a warning shot in his direction.

Even a fledgling lawyer like me knew you can’t admit shooting a shotgun at somebody but deny you meant to kill them. I was still wondering what I was supposed to do as I drove up the Magistrate Court’s parking lot packed with pick-up trucks and stepped out into the oppressive heat of a late August afternoon.

        The tiny cinderblock courtroom was stifling hot and packed with people. Seems everyone in the community was either kin to the defendant or the victim or had been playing in the poker game that led to the shooting. I saw the judge sitting by herself in her black robe behind a tiny desk at the front of the courtroom. Although I didn’t know at the time Article V, Section 26 of the South Constitution provided magistrates were appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate or that the process was controlled by “senatorial courtesy,” meaning the Governor would appoint whoever the local senator named who would be affirmed by the Senate as a courtesy to their colleague, but I instinctively introduced myself to the judge saying I worked for Senator Isadore Lourie. She greeted me warmly and graciously granted my request for a few minutes to confer with my client.

        I’d never met the client but figured, being the only idiot in a jacket and tie in the sweltering heat, he’d find me. It didn’t take long and as I was getting ready to ask him one of the hundred or so questions I’d thought up toask him, he interrupted to tell me he’d settled his differences with the alleged victim who now wanted to drop the charges. I didn’t know the man standing next to our client was the victim until he chimed in saying,” that’s right.” Fortunately, the victim had the weathered face of a farmer which showed no signs of having been shot by a shotgun. I asked them for a few minutes to confer with the judge.

        I headed back to the front of the courtroom where Judge Simmons remained sitting, fanning herself. When I told her the victim wanted to drop the charges, she said, “Oh, no, no, no. I can’t have people shooting each other in my district.” Not knowing any better, I asked what I thought was a stupid question if there was anything my client could do to resolve the situation. Judge Simmons thought long and hard sitting there fanning herself with her black robe unzipped to about her navel revealing her enormous breasts covered in a white bra. Finally, she suggested if our client turned in his shotgun, she’d agree to dismiss the charge. She again graciously granted my request for a few minutes to confer with my client.

        For those of you who may not know, ABWIK was a felony carrying up to twenty years in prison. I thought I’d pulled off a miracle and couldn’t wait to tell our client the good news of my total victory my first time out the blocks. Again, however, my client had other ideas and rejected the judge’s plea offer saying it would soon be deer hunting season and he needed his shotgun. I was dumbfounded but, more by dumb luck than anything else, asked what I thought was a second really stupid question, “how many shotguns do you own?” When he said three, I heard the solution to the impasse and suggested maybe he could just give up one shotgun. He agreed but only on the condition he could get it back after hunting season. Again, I asked for a few moments to confer with the judge.

        This time Judge Simmons agreed and, although I saw no signs of recording equipment, I made a show of placing the agreement “on the record” for the benefit of the packed courtroom. The murmuring strongly indicated approval of the agreement and the courtroom emptied. My client thanked me but wanted to make sure I told the Senator how much he was appreciated by everyone for all his good work.

        It was the next morning before I could tell everyone back at the office of my brilliant victory, but they all acted more like the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Chief, as I called Senator Lourie, was more interested in the client’s message of future political support while Jack, at least, gave me a pat on the back for a job well done. I probably felt a little like a pawn in a game I hadn’t realized I was playing but still felt like the dismissal of a serious felony at the preliminary hearing was a feather in my cap and there were lessons that I’d learned. Never give up. Keep trying and often you can find a solution to even an impossible problem. And, just as important, the only stupid questions are the ones you don’t ask. I didn’t know it then but soon enough; I’d be flying on my own.
SHAD AUP! I’M TALKIN’ TO DA LAWYER…

June 15th, 2026

My client was in the logistics business of transporting contraband around the southeast in horse trailers loaded with big, mean horses. He told any troopers who happened to pull him over they were broncs bound for a rodeo dissuading any urge to search the trailer. His ploy worked so well he earned enough to buy himself a beautiful horse farm way out in Colleton County. The only thing he loved more than his farm was his wife. When she broke her back in a single car wreck, he took her all the way to the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans for the three-level spinal fusion surgery she needed that South Carolina doctors were too scared to perform. When she recovered from her surgery, he brought her in to see my partner, Malcolm Crosland, and me about her case. She won us over immediately, being as sweet and as country as a drop girl could be. When we’d call to talk with her about her case, her husband would try to butt in on the conversation, and she’d holler on the phone, “Shad aup! I’m talking to da lawyers.” She was just the kind of client a Colleton County jury would undoubtedly love to pieces.

          Problem was by all accounts the wreck was her fault. Nobody ran her off the road and there was no mechanical breakdown. She just ran off the road and flipped over into a ditch. Fortunately for her, my partner, Malcolm, was the kind of lawyer who never gave up fighting for his clients. If you asked him for an elephant, he’d bring you a whole circus.

He somehow found a highway construction expert qualified not only to tell us what happened to cause our client’s wreck but who was responsible. His detailed report pinned the blame squarely on the paving company that left a four inch drop off on the side of the highway they’d just repaved. They were supposed to have backfilled the drop off but didn’t and his report explained how that caused our client’s wreck.

When our client drifted over to the edge of the roadway, her tire deformed and literally pulled her over the edge. When she tried to steer back onto the road surface, her tire “scrubbed” along the drop off unable to climb back up until she overcorrected to a critical angle when her tire caught and vaulted her back up onto the highway. Most often incidents of this nature cause head-on collisions but, with no oncoming traffic, our client shot all the way across the highway and rolled over into a ditch on the other side. It is a well-known and documented danger in the road construction industry as shown in the expert’s report citing peer reviewed engineering studies dating back to the Ford Model T.

          We filed a negligence action against the paving company which had plenty of insurance coverage. It didn’t take long for the paving company’s lawyers to figure out they were toast on the issue of liability, so they decided to switch gears and attack our sweet client’s credibility. Their attempts proved feeble and, quite honestly, started to piss the jury off. That’s when the desperate defense lawyers got the bright idea to stoop to a new low. They called an off duty, African American police officer to testify. He testified he didn’t see the wreck but came up on it right after it happened and jumped down into the ditch where our client was hanging upside down in her car to offer help. He sure sounded like a good Samaritan but then he testified our client clutched her jewelry hanging from her neck when he stuck his head in to ask if she was all right.

          In every lawyer’s practice the time will come when a pompous opposing counsel, a lying witness with an axe to grind, or just some plain old racist, sexist, or some other kind of istist, will say something that shows his or her true colors. In our case it came when the defense lawyer called the police officer he apparently had some connection with. I saw immediately what he was up to. I stopped and let the silence highlight for the jury that something important had happened. Then I asked the officer in a calm, level voice, “What inference is it you want the jury to draw from your testimony she clutched her jewelry?” It caught him off guard. He didn’t want to outright accuse our sweet client of thinking all black people were robbers for the benefit of the five African American jurors on our jury. All he could do was hem and haw around about how the jury could make of it whatever it wanted. So, I asked again and let the weasel squirm while the jury figured it out for themselves.

          The defense lawyer’s witness backfired spectacularly. We got a very good verdict for our Colleton County sweetheart from our Collewton County jury. And we still get a good laugh every time one of us says, “Shad aup! I’m talking to da lawyer!”
DON’T BE A “KNOW-IT-ALL LAWYER AND LEARN WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

June 13th, 2026

The mother of a young woman who’d been stabbed to death came to see me. Her daughter tried to end a relationship with a possessive and violent man. When she said she was breaking up with him, he started calling incessantly. When she called the police, they said they couldn’t do anything unless he threatened her and suggested she get an unlisted number. When he learned her old number had been disconnected and her new one was unlisted, he came over to her apartment and cut her phone wires. When she called the police that time they said they couldn’t do anything unless she had evidence he cut the wire and suggested she take out a restraining order against him. She did and, when she caught him lurking around her apartment and threatened to call the police, he beat her up pretty badly. This time when she called the police they took pictures of her black eye, busted lip, and bruises and obtained a warrant for his arrest charging him with ABHAN, assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, a felony carrying up to twenty years.

When he was arrested and held in the County jail, his Public Defender requested a preliminary hearing before a magistrate to determine whether there was probable cause to believe he committed the offense Probable cause is a very low burden of proof which surely would have been met based on her photographs and identification of the defendant, but the police failed to show up for the hearing. The magistrate dismissed the charge and ordered the defendant released from custody. Upon his release, he went straight over to the young woman’s apartment and killed her. Her mother was devastated and outraged her daughter, who had done everything she was supposed to, had been killed. When she came to see me, I was outraged too and I filed a wrongful death action against the police under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, SCTLA. I thought I had a slam dunk case but I had no inkling how much I didn’t know.

The police department’s lawyer filed an answer to my lawsuit that was an education in itself. It seems when the legislature waived sovereign immunity to allow the State and political subdivisions to be sued, they included all manner of exceptions to liability including liability for the failure to enforce the law and for discretionary acts by police officers. Apparently it doesn’t matter much anyway as whatever duty to act the police may have it is a duty owed to the general public, not specific individuals, and police action or inaction is never the proximate cause of injuries to the victim’s of criminal acts. But, hold on a minute, I said I was ignorant, not stupid.

I know enough to know when to ask for help and knew my former father-in-law, Morris Rosen, used to be the attorney for the City of Charleston, so I asked him about my case. He gave me some of his always sound advice by introducing me to his daughter-in-law, Susan Rosen, who turned out to be one of the finest lawyers I ever worked with on a case. So good, I don’t think we ever had to try a case together because they all settled. Susan reviewed the pleadings, we discussed the case, and she agreed what had happened to our client’s daughter was indeed outrageous. She immediately eased my anxiety something I didn’t know had sunk my case.

Susan calmly explained not everything a policeman does is discretionary and she was pretty sure not showing up for a court hearing without explanation was one of them. That didn’t amount to administrative action or inaction either because it did not involve policy choices. Susan’s knowledge of and experience got us through summary judgment and the case settled soon afterwards.

I wish I could tell we settled for what the case was worth, but damages under the SCTCA were capped at $200,000.00 and the settlement offer made was near enough to it, the mother decided to accept it. It was never about the money to her and she had little desire to wait another year and a half for trial. In addition to my half of the fee we earned, I got to know Susan Rosen who went on to build a reputation for being an excellent medical malpractice attorney. I didn’t know any more about med mal cases than SCTLA wrongful death cases, so you can safely bet I knew where to turn for help whenever I got one.

The lesson to be learned is not to let yourself become a “know-it-all” lawyer. I don’t care how smart you may think you are, remember it’s what you don’t know that will get you in the end. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and learn how to become a better lawyer than you could ever become alone.
DOWNRIGHT LOWDOWN DIRTY

June 5th, 2026

My client was a brilliant Ph.D. biomedical scientist who was highly recruited by the Medical University of South Carolina to conduct medical research studies. A native of Tiawan, he spent years climbing the academic ladder at some of our nation’s best colleges and universities before moving his family to the Charleston area. He wanted to put down roots in and bought a modest home in a new Mt. Pleasant subdivision. He also bought the homebuyer’s warranty offered by the developer to protect his investment.

He soon discovered his home had been built below the FEMA approved base flood elevation and flood insurance on his new home was going to cost a small fortune every year. His warranty company summarily rejected his claim for compensation on the grounds a home being built below the base flood elevation wasn’t a construction defect covered under the warranty. The warranty provided he could request AAA arbitration and he did. He represented himself and, as you might imagine, as a Ph.D. scientist he was well prepared and had his claim well documented. He won the arbitration and thought the problem had been solved until he received a certified letter from the warranty company saying they were filing an appeal to an appellate arbitrator.

My client wasn’t stupid and didn’t see any provision either in his warranty document or in the AAA’s arbitration rules granting the losing party the right to appeal. He came to see me, and I didn’t see one either, so I signed him up, and sent a strongly worded letter to the warranty company threatening legal Armageddon if they didn’t abide by the terms of the award. When they blew me off, I filed a lawsuit against them alleging breach of contract, bad faith, a violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act, and fraud. They responded to my lawsuit by hiring a high-powered, below Broad insurance defense law firm and they filed a blistering answer calling my complaint frivolous, raising defenses I’d never heard of before, and demanding my lawsuit be dismissed, with prejudice, and costs.

According to them, I was trampling on the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, the “well established” federal policy favoring arbitration, and my entire lawsuit was premature because arbitration was still ongoing. I decided I needed some high-powered legal help of my own and knew a lawyer named Bill Bundy who was a carpenter before he went to law school and practiced construction law, so I contacted him about my case. He said I needed his senior partner, Ellison D. Smith, IV, because Ellison knew all about my kind of case.

I was Ellison’s neighbor on Sullivan’s Island and knew his reputation for being an excellent lawyer, but I really didn’t know him personally. I followed Bill’s advice and met Ellison to discuss my case. I was surprised when he said he didn’t know anything about cases like mine because he’d never seen one like it before. I felt a little better when he said he’d never heard of an appellate arbitration either. As we discussed my case further, he got what I can only describe as a gleam in his eye, much like I would imagine a grand master chess champion would get thinking ten or twenty moves ahead in a game and seeing checkmate. My gaming analogy was more apt than I realized as I soon learned litigation was indeed a game to Ellison. A game we were about to have more fun playing than just about any other case I ever tried.

As the written discovery progressed, our case just kept getting better and better. The more we learned, the more it became apparent the so-called homebuyer warranty was really just an elaborate scheme to limit the developer’s liability for any screw-ups on his part. In effect, the homebuyer warranty got the homebuyer to paying for the developer’s insurance while at the same time limiting the damages he could recover and giving up his right to a jury trial.

When the time came to take depositions, hotheaded me was itching to lay out the whole scheme and expose it for exactly what it was. But Ellison counseled a different approach. A young lawyer tends to come out swinging at everything, he said, but, in a real fight, covering up is every bit as important as trying to land punches. The defense lawyers wanted to throw the land surveyor under the bus and claim he was solely responsible for the elevation error. He was more than willing to fall on his sword to save his main source of income. I wanted to show the problem with their argument was this was Phase II of the development, and the developer already knew about the elevation problem from the Phase I survey of the adjacent property. But Ellison calmly convinced me we’d rather have it be a mistake by the surveyor rather than outright fraud by the developer for coverage purposes under the warranty. When we took the deposition of the appellate arbitrator, he struggled trying to identify the warranty provision or AAA rule providing for an appeal from an arbitration award but steadfastly maintained the warranty company had an inherent right to appeal a legally incorrect award. I wanted to press him on how the arbitrator’s award was legally incorrect but Ellison said we already know they claim an elevation error isn’t a construction defect and suggested we go in another direction. He started asking where the appellate arbitrator worked before he became an appellate arbitrator. He admitted this was his first gig as an appellate arbitrator and said, before that, he was just an ordinary arbitrator. And before that, Ellison asked? When he admitted, before he became an arbitrator, he worked directly for the Homebuyer Warranty Company, Ellison just smiled, gathered up his notes, and ended the deposition. When I asked him why he let the appellate arbitrator off the hook, Ellison replied, we got what we needed and there was little to be gained from telegraphing our punches before trial. I thought I was associating a balls to the wall litigator, when it turned out I was really getting was a Kung Fu master of litigation.

I forget the name of the judge we drew which reflects my lack of respect for the way he conducted our trial. He was gruff and short-tempered right from the beginning thinking his job as a judge was to establish he was the smartest person in the room. Nothing anybody did or said met his high standards. Problem was, Ellison was by far the smartest person in the room which kept pissing the judge off.

It didn’t take long for the defense lawyer to figure out the judge would try to split the baby in half with every ruling, so the defense lawyer started objecting to everything. Often as not the judge would rule at least partially in favor of the defense no matter how ridiculous the objection was. My Kung Fu co-counsel not only deflected the judge’s rulings, he turned them back against the judge and defense counsel. They tried to exclude evidence on one ground, Ellison would simply find an alternative ground to get it in highlighting the importance of the evidence for the jury and revealing the lengths the judge and defense lawyer would go to conceal it from them.

Despite defense counsel’s best efforts and the judge’s heavy-handed rulings, we got all the evidence in we needed to prove our case. Ellison eloquently argued the same facts the judge and defense had tried to suppress entitled our client to a substantial verdict. So large in fact, defense counsel suggested in his closing argument that Ellison and I were just money-grubbing lawyers looking to get rich off of “jackpot justice.”

I gave the final argument on behalf of our client. I began by saying it didn’t matter if the jury thought we were Hacksaw Holmes and Buzzsaw Smith, two of the orneriest lawyers this side of Waco, Texas, what the Homebuyer Warranty Company tried to do to our client was just lowdown downright dirty. The jury agreed and gave us verdict Ellison asked for. So big, the judge couldn’t resist putting his finger on the scales of justice one more time. When the defense moved for a new trial or new trial nisi, the judge feigned he had a grave concern over the amount of the jury’s verdict. So concerned he said he’d hear the motions the following week in Beaufort, South Carolina where he was scheduled to hear cases.

I picked Ellison up and drove him down to Beaufort for the hearing. Ellison, as always, was well prepared for the hearing and knew the law inside out. He studied his notes during the drive and as we waited almost an hour and a half past our hearing’s scheduled time. Defense counsel’s arguments in favor of a new trial were polished but omitted much of actual evidence that supported the verdict that Ellison skillfully pointed out in his response. The judge said he’d have to take the matter under advisement and we’d have to come back after the lunch break for his ruling.

I drove Ellison around Beaufort over the lunch break discovered I wasn’t the hothead of our legal team after all. My Kung Fu co-counsel clearly did not exhibit Shaolin values during the drive as he vented a string of profanities and frustrations about the blankety blank judge. I tried calming him down as best I could but, each time he settled back down, he’d remember something else the judge had said or done that would set him off again. As time ran out and we pulled back up to the courthouse, I became seriously concerned he wouldn’t be able to control his anger when we appeared back before the judge.

Thankfully, as soon as he entered the courtroom, he became his same professional self again. When the judge said he was troubled how $400.00 increased annual flood insurance premiums could justify our $180,000.00 verdict. Ellison simply recited the testimony that the elevation error reduced the fair market value of his house by that amount. When the judge quipped that was what our client paid for the house, Ellison simply reminded the judge the house was built on a concrete slab and it would cost more than that to demolish and replace it with a home that complied with the FEMA elevation. The judge begrudgingly denied the motion to set aside or alter our verdict.

That’s not the end of this story. As word of our client’s victory spread in the subdivision, Ellison and I picked up six other homeowners in the neighborhood with the same problem and each of their cases were settled for considerable sums. And me, well every time I’d run into opposing counsel on the street or at a bar function, we’d both have a good laugh when he’d greet me with a hardy, “Hacksaw!”
QUALIFYING FOR DISQUALIFICATION

May 7th, 2026

      I don’t remember how I got this particular client but I think it was from first representing his girlfriend/partner in a dispute with her homeowner’s association over a condo she owned where she kept cats, hundreds of them. So many she ordered kitty litter for them in 55 gallon drums. Before becoming my new client’s girlfriend, she ran a lucrative business providing entertainment for bachelor parties. Lucrative enough she paid cash for her cat condo back before there were any restrictive covenants against running an animal shelter on the premises. Her cats were all indoor cats and well cared for, no noxious odors or loud noises emanating from the condo, so there wasn’t much the homeowner’s association could do about. Anyway, that’s how I met my client who was a pioneer of the telephone sex industry. They’d established one of the first and largest telephone sex companies in the entire country right here in the Lowcountry.

       When I first met him he had 30 employees, conducted business in twenty-five states, and had more telephone switching capacity than the local Mount Pleasant telephone company. He took care of the IT part of the enterprise while his girlfriend/partner took care of the girls. Their biggest customers? Men in retirement homes. Busiest time of the month? When social security checks came out. According to them most of their regular customers called more for companionship than sex. They were rolling in the loot.

       Surprisingly, they ran an extremely clean business. They got very few complaints and settled any they got amicably. Turned out there was little they needed a lawyer to do for them. Then came the call from the United States Secret Service, which investigates cyber financial crimes, requesting an interview. I arranged a meeting in my office.

       Despite my explicit instructions to keep his mouth shut, my client became a regular chatterbox during the interview insisting he ran a completely legit business. While the agent said he didn’t dispute that, he had some questions about the company’s financial practices. My client couldn’t help himself and decided to give the agent a history lesson. Believe it not, he said, originally the phone company would tack charges onto the customer’s phone bills but stopped when too many unscrupulous callers ran up exorbitant charges on other people’s phone bills. That’s when he turned to credit card processing which served the dual purpose of verifying age and collecting charges. To avoid antagonizing the credit card companies, he issued immediate reversals of any disputed charges. Everybody was happy until the Moral Majority began pressuring financial institutions to stop financing pornography in the early 2000’s. Before long his bank, VISA and Mastercard would no longer process his company’s credit card transactions. My client turned to local businesses to process his charges for him offering them a flat 10% cut and guarantee he’d cover any charge backs. At the time he was processing upwards of $80,000.00 a month in charges, so the handful of local merchants he was dealing with were happy to be raking in $8,000.00 a month virtually risk free. My client assured the agent no one had lost a single red cent due to his transactions.

       The agent thanked us for meeting with him and said, if what my client said was true, there was nothing the Secret Service would be interested in pursuing. We shook hands as he left but I asked my client to stay behind after the agent left. I told him my client I didn’t trust the agent and didn’t think the threat had passed. I’m not stupid and if I learned one thing over my years practicing law, its cover your ass, so after the meeting I wrote my client a letter setting out the potential Federal and State laws I thought he might be violating.

       Sure enough, not long after, my client, his girlfriend/partner, and the local merchants who’d been processing charges for him were all indicted in Federal Court. His indictment as the kingpin was for some ridiculous number of counts of financial access fraud, each count carrying up to 15 years and a $250,00.00 fine, bank fraud each count carrying up to 20 years and a $250,000.00 fine, and wire fraud each count also carrying up to 20 years and a $250,000.00 fine. I added up the potential penalties and told my client, eliminating the duplicate counts, he was only facing 600 years but, not to worry, I was confident I could get that knocked down to no more than 100 years. He didn’t think I was being funny.

       This is a long way around to the disqualification part of this story, but here we are, in the preliminary stages of the case in Federal Court, appearing before the Honorable David C. Norton. Right out the blocks the U.S., I mean Useless, Attorney, filed a motion to have me disqualified from the case on the grounds I had a conflict of interest. And what was my conflict of interest? Since I hadn’t advised my client what he was doing was illegal, I’d have an incentive to throw him under the bus to conceal my own incompetence.

       My co-counsel had to restrain me from punching the Useless Attorney in the face right there in the United States District Courtroom. He calmed me down by commenting that the disqualification motion was high praise and showed how much the government respected my legal abilities. When I settled down, I produced my letter advising my client of the statutes I thought he could be violating in camera to Judge Norton and he promptly denied the government’s disqualification motion.

       I wish I could say I found some way to pull a rabbit out of the hat to free my client but that’s rarely how things work out in the real practice of law. Fortunately, Judge Norton didn’t like the idea the Secret Service Agent had told my client what he was doing wasn’t illegal as outlined in my letter to my client and let the U.S Attorney know it. He further stressed he didn’t want a trial stringing all the merchants along just so they could testify at trial nobody was defrauded out of anything or lost any money. And my client, although innocent of the massive fraud alleged, didn’t want his girlfriend/partner having to face jail time. This is the stuff out of which plea bargains are crafted in the real world. My client agreed to plead to a few counts for a manageable 36 month sentence, if his girlfriend and all the merchant defendants received probationary sentences.

       My client pled and was sent off to Butler FCI where he received medical treatment for a benzodiazepine addiction. He actually thanked me when he came home a much healthier person. He never got his business back but I’m confident he’d stashed enough away for him, his girlfriend/partner, and her cats to all live comfortably thereafter. And me, in addition to my fee, I got to write this story touting I was such a good lawyer the United State’s Attorney Office for the District of South Carolina tried to have me disqualified from a case for being too good a lawyer.
BANKING …

April 21st, 2026

My friend, Bobby Howe, denied he associated me on cases and shared fees because of my legal abilities he so often needed. Instead, he insisted it was just so we could have fun together. It was in that same spirit, I invited Bobby to accompany me on a trip to Grenada I was making the trip on behalf of a client who’d purchased 220 acres of beachfront property on the island and wanted me to attend a Caribbean Basin Economic Development Program sponsored by the Reagan Administration after it invaded the island.

       Off we flew to Grenada and, while I was stuck listening to mind numbing lectures in the conference room of the hotel where the meeting was being held, Bobby enjoyed himself making friends and running up an astronomical tab at the beach front bar. He met a Frenchman and his girlfriend attending the conference who expressed an interest in the property and felt like he was earning his keep by arranging a private tour of the property for his new friends .

       Bobby assured me he’d taken care of everything, but that little voice in back of my head was already telling me I should know better. It took me about ten seconds to realize Frenchman and his girlfriend had no intention of buying anything and were just looking for a free adventure. Oh, they were fixin’ to get one but had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

The trip began in a beat-up old minivan owned by the derelict brother-in-law of a bartender Bobby befriended at the hotel. We loaded up and held on for dear life as the maniac driver careened over Granada’s hilly coast road to an old plantation located a couple of miles down the coast from the property. We were all relieved to be out of the deathtrap van but soon realized the death-defying part of the trip was just beginning.

       I have to assume the boat and captain were another referral to a relative by Bobby’s bartender friend. The boat was a twenty-foot wooden boat that had to be at least fifty years old and had an equally old, beat up out board motor with red plastic gas can plugged into it. The boat was brightly colored in whatever mismatched, leftover paint the owner could beg, borrow, or steal. The owner was every bit as old as his boat, but he’d been baked in the Caribbean sun for so many years it was hard to tell exactly how old he was. I immediately noticed the complete lack of ant lifesavers or safety gear. Only Bobby could have talked us all into the boat but he did and, before anybody could change their mind, he helped the owner push the boat out to sea. Our trepidation rose as the water reached within five inches of the gunwale. The ride out through the breakers took years off our lives.

       Once we hit open water, we all exhaled an enormous sigh of relief. Bobby sat at the back laughing with our captain who as relieved as we were we’d made it through. It was smooth sailing from there until it was time to head back into the property riding the surf all the way up onto the beach. We all scampered out of the boat as fast as we could thankful to be safely standing on the white sand of the property’s secluded beach. The property truly was paradise. It encompassed an entire undeveloped cove with high ground extending out on either side and a small undeveloped island. Petit Trou, nestled off one side. Palm trees lined the pristine beach, and it wasn’t long before we all forget the harrowing ride it took to get there. Of course, Bobby became so much of a hero for taking us all on such an amazing adventure, none of us minded the trip back to the hotel.

       That night was the highlight of the conference, a private party at the residence of the American ambassador. I don’t know how many millions of dollars someone has to donate to get the posting but it’s worth every penny. The newly renovated colonial residence was beautiful, but the party was being held on the just as beautiful manicured lawn stretching down the hillside from the residence to a breathtaking view out to sea. There was a brick pathway surrounded by flowering tropical plants that led from the residence to a sitting area down by the overlook.

       I lost track of Bobby while I tried to socialize with the ambassador and invited guests. It didn’t take long to find him when the time for the party to end approached. All I had to do was follow the laughter down the garden path. There he was, surrounded by Grenada’s upper class and a smattering receiving a lesson on how to drink the island’s prized 110 proof rum. The natives showed Bobby how they take a shot and quickly wash it down with a tall glass of water presumably to keep their heads from exploding, Bobby was encouraging the locals to show him how him one more time how to master the technique to hilarious laughter. When I told him it was time to go, it took another twenty minutes for him to say goodbye to all his newfound friends who were every bit as tipsy as he was.

       I was frankly surprised he was able to make it back up the garden path up to the residence in his condition. He gushed the whole way about how much fun he’d been having at the party. As we excited through the front door of the Ambassador’s residence, a stunningly beautiful woman dressed in her floral island finery, complete with matching tignon, stopped Bobby to say, “Oh, Mr. Howe, you should move down here to practice law in Grenad full time.” Bobby asked, “What kind of law would I be able to practice here?” And the woman replied in all seriousness, “Banking.”
LIKE KISSING YOUR SISTER

April 19th, 2026

Too often nobody wins in the courtroom and too often when you do, it feels more like kissing your sister than a victory. People nowadays admire the Honorable Clifton Newman for the way he presided over the Murdaugh murder trial in Colleton County, but I first got to know him when he was still the Solicitor for Williamsburg County. I was hired to represent a Charleston area college student accused of murder in his hometown of Kingstree, South Carolina. As murder cases go, it was a defense lawyer’s self-defense dream case.

When my client returned home from college for the Thanksgiving break in his freshman year, he learned his younger sister was being recruited to join a gang. It really wasn’t much of a gang, more a high school click of wannabe gangsters than a real gang, but they’d dreamt up a demeaning recruitment ritual for young women. Hearing what the initiation entailed, my client forbid his sister from having anything to do with the gang or any of its members. When word got back to the self-appointed gang leader, he vowed vengeance against my client. When my client got wind of the leader’s threats, he took them seriously and started carrying a pistol for his protection. Kingstree being the small town it is, it wasn’t long before the two crossed paths and heated words were exchanged. When the so-called gang leader thought he would prove how tough he was by beating my client’s ass, my client shot him dead as a hammer in the parking lot of a quick stop store. As good a self-defense case as there ever was in my fifty years experience.

I fleshed out my client’s self-defense case at his preliminary and bond hearings and, although my arguments weren’t good enough to get the charge dismissed outright, they were good enough to get him released on bond. Unfortunately, my client was forced to put his college education on hold while he found a job so he could pay his parents back for his bail bond and attorney fees. There weren’t many jobs in Kingstree to begin with and being out on bond for murder slammed the doors shut on the few jobs that existed. The case languished until my client’s name cropped up on the General Sessions trial roster and I was required to make the seventy-five mile, hour and forty-five minute drive to Kingstree to attend the hearing.

Solicitor Newman said he understood the trip I’d made and, remembering my arguments at the prelim and bond hearings, talked with me seriously about his having to deal with the victim’s grieving family. He countered my self-defense arguments saying the victim was just a high school student, he was unarmed, and his family denied he was a member of any gang. I replied my client was a student too, that was not my client’s understanding of the situation, and, under South Carolina law, the defendant in a self-defense case is entitled to act on appearances. Solicitor Newman offered if my client pled guilty in open court plea to voluntary manslaughter, he would put in a good word for him with the judge in-chambers, but my client steadfastly maintained his innocence and rejected the offer. Thus began a seemingly endless string of back-and-forth drives to Kingstree and a lawyer’s tug of war with neither side willing or able to give an inch.

The modest fee I’d charged my client’s parents to begin with was beginning to look more and more like I was being paid the minimum wage. The break that finally broke the deadlock came but not from either Solicitor Newman’s or my trial skills. My client, who had no prior record before he was charged with murder, turned to crime to earn money when he couldn’t find a legit job. And not just any crime, he decided to try his hand at bank robbery. Solicitor Newman filled me in on the details of the robbery and my client’s arrest when I appeared for my client’s next docket sounding. Solicitor Newman said the victim’s family would be satisfied if my client plead guilty to the bank robbery charge and would allow him to dismiss the murder charge.

My client freely admitted the bank robbery and agreed to plead straight up to the charge which carried from ten to thirty years, of which you had to serve at least seven years, to get it over with and the murder charge behind him. He pled guilty that afternoon to bank robbery and received a sentence of twenty years. Solicitor Newman was true to his word and never mentioned my client’s pending murder charge during the guilty plea and quietly nol prossed the murder charge later that same afternoon.

I’d won a murder case, but it didn’t feel much like much a victory. It felt more like kissing my sister, nothing to get excited about. What if my client hadn’t been charged with murder? What if he’d been able to find a job? What if he hadn’t decided to rob a bank? “What if” questions will drive a lawyer crazy. They are best answered by reminding yourself, “if your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle.” You aren’t responsible for the legal system, just to do the best you can to help your client out of whatever fix he or she got themselves into. So, pucker up, Sis, congratulate me for a not so satisfying victory in a murder case.
THE LAWYERS OF ISLAM

April 2nd, 2026

        I was the attorney of record for Rocket Packs girlfriend who lived with him in the house with the floor safe stuffed with cocaine, money, and drugs. She was also charged with Trafficking Cocaine, more than 100 grams, and facing the same minimum. mandatory twenty-five years, no probation, no parole. Her claim of ignorance as to her otherwise unemployed boyfriend’s drug dealing activities was seriously undercut by the cocaine, straws, and mirrors strewn about the house as well as the scrap book of photographs showing them partying, drinking Champaigne, and riding around New York City in a limousine. In truth, she knew very little about her boyfriend’s drug dealing enterprise and the prosecutor was willing to let her plead guilty not only to simple possession of the cocaine found in plain view during the search but to recommend probation too. She agreed to accept the plea understanding she would probably lose her teaching certificate but that was a bridge she’d already burned behind her anyway. I informed the Assistant Solicitor we had a deal and requested he put her on the upcoming guilty plea docket.

        Her case was placed on the plea docket of Judge John Hamilton Smith, a no non-sense judge who wouldn’t have been my first pick to plea in front of, but, nevertheless, a judge I knew would accept the recommendation. I notified my client of the date and time for her plea and said I would meet her at the courthouse a half-hour beforehand to fill out the paperwork required for a plea. I figured to get our paperwork in early so we’d be in and out quickly but everything fell apart when we met at the courthouse and she told me she’d decided to reject the offer. I asked what happened to change her mind but she wouldn’t tell me. Out of frustration, I asked her how it felt to screw herself giving up a plea to a guaranteed walk when she was facing twenty-five years hard time. All she would say is the Lawyers of Islam were coming down to the courthouse to take over her case. I told her they’d better hurry because Judge Smith was taking the bench in fifteen minutes and was expecting her to plead.

        A few minutes later Attorney Fred Henderson Moore, Sr., arrived at the courthouse. He was easily recognizable from the limited use of his arm and leg he’d had since birth. He was the last of twelve children born in 1934 during the Great Depression. I don’t know for sure, but from appearances he had cerebral palsy making his already hard life that much more of a struggle. Miraculously he thrived growing up in the Honey Hill subdivision of James Island. He was president of the Honor Society in his junior year and president of the student body in his senior year at Burke High School. He was one of only two African American students to take the college entrance examination the year he graduated. He was awarded the Danforth Foundation Leadership Award and offered scholarships to attend Carnegie Mellon and Harvard. Too poor to pay for travel expenses and books, he decided to attend South Carolina State in Orangeburg on a full scholarship.

Subjected to Jim Crow laws his whole life, he became a civil rights activist in college. He joined the NAACP’s effort to desegregate Orangeburg’s white schools after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. The school board denied the Petition and the White Citizens Council began targeting anyone who supported the petition for retaliation. Undeterred, Mr. Moore helped organize a boycott of Charleston businesses a year before the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks.

Orangeburg Representative Jerry Hughes, Jr., introduced a bill and the Governor sent SLED to investigate subversive activities on campus. Mr. Moore called the dean a moral coward for not supporting the students and was expelled from the college. Despite his expulsion, he graduated law school from Howard University and became a well-known civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. Fifty years later, South Carolina State University issued an apology and awarded him an honorary degree.

It was about that time I first had the occasion to appear in court with Mr. Moore when he represented a co-defendant in an historical drug conspiracy case before United States District Court Judge Sol Blatt. Judge Blatt was one of the most gracious judges I have ever appeared before but Mr. Moore wore Judge Blatt’s patience flat out by being chronically late for court. When he failed to show up at all for post-trial motions, Judge Blatt lost it and called him incompetent on the record. Realizing he’d given the defendant a guaranteed appeal for ineffective assistance of counsel, Judge Blatt continued the hearing and appointed Coming Ball Gibbs to represent the defendant who was given a sweetheart deal to sweep the whole incident under the rug.

And, here it was years later and Mr. Moore was arriving at the courthouse as a Lawyer of Islam.[1] He may have lost a step or two in the later years of his legal career but I can attest he remained fully competent on this occasion. I watched him interact with my recalcitrant client from down the hall and, as soon as he got the gist of what was going on, he backed her right up against the wall and gave her his Sharia Law advice in no uncertain terms. Immediately afterwards, he marched her straight into the courtroom to enter her plea.

        Sadly, in later years, Mr. Moore would be reprimanded, suspended, and ultimately disbarred from the practice of law but, to my mind, that shouldn’t detract from the miraculous story of his early childhood and early career as civil rights and criminal defense attorney. I wish I could have known him back when he struggled to succeed and fought to preserve and protect all of our rights. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more politicians today would take note and retire before old age tarnishes their legacies.

[1] It is curious how he became a Lawyer of Islam as there are several articles referring to Mr. Moore as the Reverend Dr. Fred Henferson Moore but I could find no record of his attending divinity school.
GANSTA STYLE

March 26th, 2026

A client of mine and her sister lived and raised their families in apartments next door to each other on the east side of Charleston. The sister’s daughter got involved in an abusive relationship and was forced to call 911 when she was violently assaulted by her boyfriend. The police arrested the boyfriend and charged him with Criminal Domestic Violence. The daughter moved back home to live with her mother while he was incarcerated on a Twenty-five Thousand dollar bond conditioned on him having no contact with the daughter.

It didn’t take long for the boyfriend to raise the ten percent cash needed to bond out and the very first thing he did upon release was go over to my client’s sister’s house where the daughter was staying to demand that she drop the charges. My client’s son happened to be visiting when the boyfriend showed up demanding to talk to his girlfriend. My client’s son walked over to to his aunt’s apartment to remind the boyfriend he wasn’t allowed to be there but the boyfriend told him to mind his own fucking business. When my client’s son insisted the boyfriend had to leave, the boyfriend came at him aggressively apparently thinking beating him up would be as easy as beating his girlfriend up. My client’s son beat the livin’ shit out of him. No one called the cops but bad blood remained between the boyfriend and son.

Several months later their paths crossed again in a night club. My client’s son was headed to the bathroom when he walked by the boyfriend and his homies standing by the bar. The son just kept on walking but the boyfriend and his friends followed him down the hallway to the restrooms. My client’s son stopped, turned around, and withdrew a small 25 caliber ACP, automatic Colt pistol, from his jacket pocket just as he was about to be jumped from behind. Upon seeing the gun, the boyfriend’s friends and he about climbed over each other trying to run the other way. The son fired one shot in the commotion that just happened to hit the boyfriend right in his ass.

My client’s son had the good sense not to run away or make any incriminating statements when he was arrested and charged with Assault and Battery with Intent to Kill, a felony carrying 20 years. He became my client, pled not guilty, and we demanded trial by jury beginning the agonizingly long wait to get one. Meanwhile the boyfriend’s CDV charge languished because he had become a cooperating witness for the prosecution.

Now, you might think my new client he had a rock-solid defense but prior to 2024 it was illegal for anybody to carry a concealed weapon without a permit in South Carolina and shooting somebody in the back who’s trying to get away from you was frowned upon in self defense cases in the eyes of the law. Fortunately, the only real defense in a murder or attempted murder case is that is the guy who got shot was a son of bitch and my client was the perfect person to shoot him.

Most people think all judges are the same but in the criminal court there are two different kinds of judges. There are plea judges defendants will line up to plead before because they accept plea bargains and are willing to impose probationary sentences and trial judges defendants avoid like the plague because they would sentence a nun to hard time for jaywalking. The Honorable Kristi Harrington was our assigned judge for trial and , as a former prosecutor, she was definitely of the later variety. This would be my first trial appearing before her.

Things got off to a rocky start with the crime scene photographs. I’ve written before about the nasty habit of small caliber bullets to ricochet around inside bodies they enter butwho knew the buttock was so full of arteries? Apparently the bullet in this case shredded the boyfriend’s superior gluteal artery resulting in copious quantities of red blood being sprayed all over the hallway to the bathroom. The jurors’ gasps when shown the pictures were not a good sign. I did my best highlighting it was only one shot from a small caliber pistol but the damage to my self defense defense had been done.

The medical examiner’s and investigating officer’s testimony was like a base line tennis match with volleys going back and forth and neither side gaining much in the way of an advantage. Then the prosecutor called the boyfriend to testify and things started to heat up. I had just begun my proof the boyfriend was a son of a bitch when Judge Harrington saw where I was headed and cut me off. She precluded me from getting into the details of him being charged with CDV because he hadn’t been convicted and, in her gratitious words to the jury, was presumed innocent. Likewise, she precluded me from even mentioning the boyfriend’s friends had pending Trafficking Crack cocaine charges for the same reason. I wasn’t making much headway on my the boyfriend was a son of a bitch defense but, meanwhile, the boyfriend testified my client shot him with his gun held sideways “gansta style.” I jumped up and strenuously objected but Judge Harrington quickly overruled my objection. I know I shouldn’t have but the unfairness of her ruling got under my skin and I muttered under my breath loud enough for everyone to hear, “Great, I can’t say his friends are crack cocaine dealers but he can call my client a ganster.”

Judge Harrington turned flaming red and demanded to know what I’d said. I stood my ground and said I had excepted to her ruling my client could be called a gangster in front of the jury. She threatened me with contempt for any similar gratitious comments. I could see the jury taking it all in but couldn’t read their reaction.

Even restricted I was able to paint the picture of the bad blood between the boyfriend and my client cross examining the prosecution witness and I completely filled in the picture when I called my client to the stand. Now, normally, calling a defendant to testify is ill advised for a myriad of reasons that are not applicable in a self-defense case. The defendant has to testify in such cases. He had no prior record and the only hurdle he had to overcome was his carrying a gun into the nightclub that night. Thankfully, he testified forthrightly that he brought it with him because he knew the boyfriend’s reputation for violence.

He was a likeable defendant whose testimony carried the day and the jury returned a not guilty verdict. One of the jurors came up to me after the trial to tell me a couple of jurors were upset the judge had to dress me down during the trial but he told them a lawyer isn’t doing their job if they’re not fussed at by the judge at least once during a trial . In fairness to Judge Harrington, I shouldn’t have let ruling get to me but, all in all, I think by the end of the trial she’d stopped being so prosecution-oriented and she I know she was satisfied with the verdict. It wouldn’t be the last case I tried before her and we got along afterwards. I always found I could earn a judge’s respect when I fought a hard case for my clients, especially when I won. I tried my last murder case in front of her but I’ll write about that story another day.
A Constitutional Crisis in Cottageville

March 22nd, 2026

Let me just begin by saying my wife, Mary, likes studying people while waiting in places like restaurants and airports. There we were waiting to board a flight when Mary leaned over and whispered in my ear, “There’s a woman over there that’s cutting you killer eyes.” I looked up and there she was, the antagonist of a constitutional crisis that occurred in Cottageville, South Carolina, a small town in rural Colleton County with a population just shy of eight hundred.

        The wife of an old client of mine was sued being for being part of a civil conspiracy to defame the reputation of the Cottageville Town Clerk and have her unceremoniously fired from her job. It all began when the former mayor of Cottageville was killed driving eighty-something miles an hour on the county’s back roads. The newly elected mayor thought it would be wise as part of his orientation for his new job to meet individually with the town’s staff. The meeting with the town clerk lasted longer than most, in fact, it seemed never ending.

People began noticing the mayor’s and clerk’s cars parked outside the locked Town Hall at all hours, day and night. Tongues in the small town began wagging. The gossip escalated when the mayor gave the clerk a brand new desk placed right outside the mayor’s office with a large ornate clerk sign. In contravention of the town’s time-honored open-door policy, henceforth people were told they needed an appointment to meet with either the mayor or town clerk and the clerk’s snooty attitude if the new rule was violated ruffled more a few feathers in the town.

        Idle gossip allegedly became slander when the clerk was flat out accused of having an affair with the mayor at the local beauty salon. The clerk’s specifics as to who, what, where, and when the alleged slander occurred were exceedingly vague. But the clerk maintained it was the beginning of the end of her virtuous reputation

        The next act in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy occurred at the local bank. A teller allegedly repeated the slander when the clerk demanded immediate service ahead of other customers. The teller’s comments included a suggestion the clerk should take the town’s business elsewhere allegedly causing pecuniary damage to her livelihood.

        It was the Cottageville dry cleaner who brought the simmering constitutional crisis to a boil. Cottageville being such a small town it was not unusual for the dry cleaner to deliver cleaned laundry right into your home. One day the good citizens of Cottageville, including my client, were enjoying their lunch at the Good Eats restaurant on the main drag when the dry cleaning lady came in an excitedly exclaimed for all to hear, “You won’t believe what I just saw!” She went to describe how she entered the mayor’s back door, like she always did when delivering his dry cleaning, she encountered the mayor standing with his pants down around his ankles and the clerk on her knees by the kitchen table. It took all of about ten seconds for this news flash to be repeated to every inhabitant of the town.

        And it was the last straw for the good ladies of Cottageville, my client included, who decided to join together and run for Town Council for the express purpose of firing the clerk. And, they won the election and did exactly that. Good riddance, well not so fast. The town clerk retaliated by filing a lawsuit against the town and all the newly elected council members for besmirching her reputation and destroying her ability to earn a living.

The lawyers representing the other defendants and I filed answers to the lawsuit denying the allegations, pleading truth as a defense, and raising as many affirmative defenses as we could think of. We answered discovery and, after four or five months racking up legal fees, we were finally ready to take the clerk’s deposition. With the town, mayor, and co- defendants all having lawyers, the deposition was well into the second day when it was my turn to cross-examine the clerk. The lawyer’s ahead of me had already elicited adamant denials of infidelity from the clerk and I certainly felt no reason to beat that dead horse. I focused on what evidence, if any, the clerk had my client actually accused her of anything. Oh, she was right in the thick of it, the clerk claimed, joined right in with those other ladies to do her dirty. When it turned out she didn’t have any evidence my client accused her of anything, I filed a motion for summary judgment.

We drew the Honorable Carmen Tevis to hear the motion. Judge Tevis let it be known in no uncertain terms she had no intention of listening to the sorted details of the alleged debauchery at the hearing. Having already described the details in detail in my not so brief brief, I whole heartedly agreed with the judge and told her it was the complete lack of evidence my client had said anything about the clerk’s conduct that entitled her to summary judgment. When the clerk’s lawyer protested my client had campaigned on a platform to have the clerk fired, I admitted as much but countered with my client had the absolute constitutional rights to freedom of speech, assermblt, and right to petition the government for grievances and, since that was all the clerk alleged my client had done, she was entitled to judgement as a matter of law. Judge Tevis agreed and granted summary judgment.

I mistakenly thought everyone was glad it was over. Certainly, my client, her co-defendants, and the town who all had limited resources to pay mounting legal fees were glad it was over. No appeal was taken from Judge Tevis’ order by the clerk’s counsel who I suspected had unwisely taken the case on a contingency fee and seen the writing on the wall. But, obviously not everybody was glad with the result. Here I was sitting in the airport with my wife worrying I was about to be assaulted by some crazy lady. It is the price we lawyers have to be willing to pay for fighting to preserve and protect our constitutional rights. A price I have paid many times having been appointed to represent despicable people accused of committing horrendous crimes. Although no major movie studio has called offering to buy the rights to this monumental constitutional battle fought out in the back woods of the deep south, I will always consider role in the case as a badge of honor.