Sumter Lawyers

I was born and raised in Georgia, but I ended up in South Carolina for law school. After working as a Series 7 registered representative in the financial markets, After becoming an attorney, I made my way back home to Atlanta. I’m an experienced trial attorney who has tried cases ranging from DUI to murder. You can trust me with your case and know that I will fight for you every step of the way. When it comes down to it, I’m not just another lawyer – I care about my clients and their well-being. My goal is always...

Holly Saleeby Atkins is the founding member of the Atkins Law Firm and one of the most well-respected workers’ compensation attorneys in the state. Holly brings a unique perspective to the practice of Workers’ Compensation as she is one of a handful of lawyers in SC that has worked in every aspect of the Workers’ Compensation system—as a defense attorney, a Commissioner, and representing injured workers. Prior to being appointed to the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission, Holly worked as a defense attorney for ten years representing insurance companies and employers in workers’ compensation matters. She was then...

Michael R. Jeffcoat is a DUI attorney in Lexington and the founding lawyer at the firm of Michael R. Jeffcoat, Attorney at Law, PA. For over 17 years, he has been working in the legal field, and he currently practices in both state and federal courts. Attorney Jeffcoat serves in the House of Delegates of the South Carolina Bar and on the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Association for Justice. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law. For a free evaluation of your case, contact his firm today.

Danny Vega boasts nearly 20 years of experience in the legal profession and has represented over one thousand clients in workers’ compensation and Social Security Disability claims. Danny takes great pride in building strong relationships with his clients, personally handling client intake, claim management, evidence discovery, court proceedings, hearings, and file closure. Danny speaks fluent Spanish and enjoys providing legal services to members of the Hispanic community as he is able to converse with and relate to his Spanish-speaking clients in their primary language.

Reed focuses his practice in the areas of family law, estate planning, and ERISA compliance, while specializing in the drafting of Prenuptial Agreements and Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs). He is licensed to practice in South Carolina and New York. In addition to his law degree, Reed has an undergraduate degree in economics, a graduate degree in accounting, and has passed the Uniform CPA exam.

David's legal practice is devoted exclusively to litigation. Litigation is a broad term, but it generally refers to any type of legal dispute resolution process that may eventually require resolution through the court system. While there are many areas of litigation, David primarily focuses on legal disputes: (1) arising out of eminent domain and condemnation (government taking a private landowner's property); (2) business disputes, such as contract or lease disputes, partnership breakups, or disputes with governmental bodies; and (3) construction, both plaintiff and defendants, construction defects, breach contract, and professional negligence of design professionals. David has...

R. Lawton Harper concentrates his practice solely in Workers’ Compensation. Lawton was born and raised in Beaufort, South Carolina. He left home to attend Elon University in North Carolina, where he graduated in 2017 with a degree in History and Education. After college, he returned to the Lowcountry and served South Carolina as a social studies teacher and basketball coach at Summerville High School. He then enrolled at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he graduated with honors in 2022. He is excited to once again be helping the people of South Carolina. In his free time, Lawton...

Margaret A. "Meg" Collins is a lifelong native of Columbia, South Carolina. She attended the University of South Carolina Honors College, majoring in International Relations with a minor in Business Administration. After employment with the South Carolina Senate, Ms. Collins attended the University of South Carolina School of Law, while concurrently clerking for a small firm that focused on secured transactions, collections, creditor bankruptcy and contract law. Once licensed in 1997, Ms. Collins developed a very successful private practice encompassing general civil and domestic litigation, computer and information technology law, business, procurement, municipal and local government representation and...

Dan Kienker is from Hendersonville North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina-Asheville with a major in political science. Upon his graduation he entered the United States Air Force as a Second Lieutenant serving 26 years, and retiring with the rank of Full Colonel. His military career includes assignments to Germany, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, and Warsaw, Poland where he led a military contact team shortly after the fall of the former Soviet Union.
During his military career he was selected for Command of three combat rated Tactical Control...

Columbia, SC Attorney Nick Mermiges combines years of South Carolina family court experience with elite academic credentials and an unwavering dedication to his clients' interests. Nick has handled hundreds of divorce, custody and family cases in South Carolina. He has taken multiple cases to trial in Richland and Lexington Counties. He knows what needs to be done before a case begins, after a case is filed, and throughout litigation to help his clients get the outcome they want. Nick believes that the goal of every family court attorney should be to get their client through the family court system as expeditiously as...

Kevin Hardy is an estate planning, probate, and business law attorney in Lexington, South Carolina. He serves clients in Lexington, West Columbia, Irmo, Columbia, Gilbert, and beyond. He worked for several years as a staff accountant in the semiconductor industry before pursuing his law career at the University of South Carolina. Upon graduating from USC, he clerked for Judge Ralph King Anderson, Jr. at the South Carolina Court of Appeals in Florence.

Kevin’s practice focuses on helping clients with the preparation of wills, living wills, trusts, health care powers of attorney, and durable powers of attorney. This enables...

Joe was born and raised in Belton, South Carolina and comes from a long-line of working-class folks. From a young age, Joe has always been very competitive and very driven. He also strongly believes in the power of paying it forward. Joe cites his parents and many strong mentors in his life for giving him the tools necessary for success. The first male in his family to attend college, Joe played Division I football and was a team captain for two years while at Presbyterian College “PC”. Joe graduated from PC in 2013 with a major in...

Jane H. Downey is certified by the S.C. Supreme Court as a specialist in bankruptcy and debtor/creditor law. She also is certified by the S.C. Supreme Court as a mediator and arbitrator. The American Board of Certification has certified her as a specialist in business bankruptcy. Jane is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute. She also is the incorporating attorney, a member of, and is a past president of the S.C. Bankruptcy Law Association. Jane represents creditors, debtors and unsecured creditor committees in chapter 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 business and consumer cases, including bankruptcy litigation. She...

My name is Elizabeth Franklin-Best and I am an attorney who focuses on criminal appellate law and federal criminal law. I started at the Richland County Public Defender’s office where I worked alongside some of the most passionate lawyers in this profession. Later, I worked at the South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense, Appellate Division where I studied and analyzed hundreds of different cases, and gained valuable experience arguing in the South Carolina Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. I spent 7 years as a partner in the law firm of Blume Franklin-Best & Young, LLC focused on capital...

John focuses his practice on business transactions, commercial real estate development, commercial leasing, and commercial lending. John also has experience representing commercial investors, utilities, and financial institutions in connection with commercial bankruptcy, insolvency, creditors’ rights issues, and all phases of real estate litigation law, as well as commercial and real estate litigation. John is currently an adjunct instructor for the University of South Carolina School of Law’s Veterans Legal Clinic, which serves the legal needs of indigent veterans and their families living in South Carolina. John has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America as “Ones to Watch” in Commercial Litigation...

South Carolina injury attorney and business litigation lawyer Johnny Felder is a partner at McGowan, Hood & Felder, LLC.

Mr. Milling is a litigator in both federal and state court handling civil litigation, corporate litigation, criminal defense, and white collar criminal defense.

John Kassel is a managing partner at Kassel McVey, a personal injury law firm based in Columbia, SC. Mr. Kassel represents injured victims and their loved ones in personal injury cases such as auto accidents, product liability, premises liability, construction accidents, and medical malpractice. Throughout his career, John has committed to fight on behalf of injury victims and not corporations, manufacturers or insurance companies.

John Kassel graduated from Northwestern University in 1979. He then joined Volunteers in Service to America, where he worked for the Brown Lung Association, a group mainly comprised of retired cotton textile mill workers who were suffering...

Maggie Chappell practices in the areas of personal injury and mass torts. She has handled truck and auto accidents and catastrophic injury cases. She also works on the mass torts team which handles 3M combat earplug cases and talcum powder ovarian cancer cases, among many more. Maggie was born and raised in Inman, South Carolina. She moved just down the road to attend Wofford College and graduated in 2012 with a degree in English. After college, she worked as a legal assistant for Mark Arden before attending the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2015. Maggie was lucky to...

Practicing law since 1985, Bill's practice focuses on commercial real estate transactions, income tax planning for closely held businesses, tax deferred exchanges of real estate, and business transactions, including entity formations and the acquisition and disposition of businesses and assets. He also devotes significant professional time to matters involving legal ethics and lawyer misconduct. He serves as general counsel to a number of closely held businesses. Other areas of Bill's experience include serving as a consultant and expert witness in multiple legal malpractice actions acting as outside general counsel to several law firms and to clients in the convenience...

Steve joined Cavanaugh & Thickens, LLC, in 2019. Before joining Cavanaugh & Thickens, LLC, Steve worked for over five years with the Fifth Circuit Public Defender in Columbia, South Carolina. At the public defender, Steve focused on defending individuals charged with serious and most serious violent crimes. During the past five years, Steve has defended nearly every type of crime on the books, including Murder and Felony DUI involving Death. Steve has successfully tried many criminal cases to verdict and is licensed to provide first-chair defense representation in death penalty cases.

During Steve’s tenure as a public defender, he was...

Attorney Hair focuses his practice on car wrecks, dog bites, and trip and fall cases. He is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which is a group where membership is limited to attorneys who have achieved million dollar verdicts or settlements. Attorney Hair has also been selected by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star for consecutive years. He has served hundreds of clients across South Carolina!

Carl was born and raised in the upstate of South Carolina, but he has called Columbia home for the last 14 years. Born into a family of lawyers, Carl knew from a young age that he wanted to be a trial attorney and prides himself in helping others. After high school, Carl matriculated to the University of South Carolina where he graduated magna cum laude from The University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business in 2010 with a B.S. in Accounting. He graduated cum laude from The University of South Carolina School of Law in 2013. He received membership...

Allyson Pittman was born and raised in the small town of Dillon, right on the South Carolina/North Carolina border. She attended the University of South Carolina and earned a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Management, with a Criminal Justice minor. After graduating magna cum laude from USC, she attended Charleston School of Law. Upon graduating from Charleston School of Law, Allyson took a position working for the Public Defender’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit in South Carolina. There she represented individuals who had been charged with low level to high level criminal charges. Allyson then left the...

I am a native of New England but have been a long time resident of South Carolina, I earned a Master's Degree in counseling and worked in the counseling field prior to attending law school. This has given me a unique advantage over other family law attorneys. I have been in private practice for the past 14 years, focusing exclusively on family law matters. I treat all of my cases as if I had a personal stake in the outcome, and I work very closely with my clients to insure that their interests are being protected.

A winning combination for success Experience. Intelligence. Ethics. Professionalism. You want a lawyer who embodies all of these qualities, and that’s the winning combination you find at Ervin Law Office. Attorney John M. Ervin is recognized in the community as an accomplished and effective trial attorney who gets results. When you turn to us, you can expect: • Clear communication. We know the legal system can be confusing and intimidating. Our staff is dedicated to providing you with the support you need in a friendly, client-centered environment. We clearly explain how the law can work for you in your...

I'm a lawyer from Columbia, South Carolina. As an attorney, I apply the law to protect the rights of those who are harmed. Our nation is governed by a system of rules designed to keep all of us safe. My job is to hold individuals and corporations responsible when they choose to break the rules and put others at risk. People come to me looking for nothing more than justice. My goal is to achieve just that - to balance the scales. I am trusted to help individuals and families suffering from life changing injuries. It is a humbling...

** What is it like working with me? ** When working with me, what you see is what you get. I’ve been told that I have a strong personality. I am brutally honest, and I won’t sugar coat the facts. That means I’m not afraid to ask and answer the hard questions when working on your case. With that said, you should know that I’m still very approachable, non-judgmental and down to earth. In whatever situation my clients have found themselves in, I’m not here to judge or make them feel bad about themselves. My job is to...