A Brief Guide to South Carolina Law Firms
As a Southeastern state with a rich legal history, South Carolina is a hub of traditional and modern legal practice. From well-established firms with deep roots in the community to innovative new players on the scene, the state’s legal business landscape is as diverse as its geography.
There are more than 15,000 active lawyers in South Carolina, with a concentration of law firms in major cities. Accounting for approximately one-third of the entire state’s active lawyers, Charleston and Columbia remain the most densely populated areas, followed closely by Greenville and Myrtle Beach.
Public opinion ranks large law firms as either complex entities and organizations or as prosperous businesses. We tend to agree with the latter description due to their revenue, adequate resources, and business-minded practices. Consequently, their advantages over smaller firms are widespread, as these firms tend to be captain on many ships, having offices in various locations and primarily handling larger multistate or multinational matters. Large law firms also have a wider network to draw from for staffing, support, and even to a certain extent, promotion. But these alone do not necessarily make a large a firm better than its small law counterpart. For the client, price advantage, adequate resources, and quality representation are the main concerns—something that usually boils down to a simple choice: law firm size or established network reach.
Larger firms, however, have two complexities that are often confusing: the meaning of "size" and "rank." Ranking understands the law firms’ positions in the market and their respective areas of expertise. Size does not always correspond with rank . There are large law firms with solid reputations that are followed by equally large law firms that are more well-known. As a result, there is no established standard of regulation for law firm rankings, as each law firm is ranked according to a source’s independent methodology and criteria. This may include client feedback, referee review, recognition of professional excellence, number of lawyers, number of offices, number of practice groups, reported revenue, attractive salary, associations, etc. To this end, Thomson Reuters, Legal.com and Lawyers Weekly, among others, have created specialized rating rankings such as Revenue, Profit per Equity Partner (PPEP), Lateral Partner Growth (LPG), Associate to Partner Ratio (A2P), Realization and Demand.
Overall, from the perspective of the common man, not everything that shines is gold. Law firms, for clients especially, must be evaluated on their own merits. But for the large law firm, his/her size, rank, or otherwise must be coupled with what makes him/her special- what sets him/her apart from the other large law firms?
In this article, we have taken a look at some of the largest law firms in the South Carolina region. We have relied on the combined report of Law360 and the American Lawyer for all our data points. The American Lawyer ranks the nation’s biggest law firms by head count, while Law360’s annual group profile virtually puts together information from every American commercial law firm. According to their report, there are almost 200 law firms in the market. The top 50 law firms have collective revenues of $12.5 billion, and the top 50 partners have a combined average of $1.35 million in compensation. Only time will tell how the next few years will transform this remarkable landscape in the state.
Ranking Methodology for Law Firms
To arrive at our list of the largest law firms in South Carolina, we first defined "largest" as the number of attorneys holding active, full-time law licenses collectively in the State of South Carolina. No consideration is given to whether an attorney actually practices or resides in South Carolina. We did this to broaden the field of potential firms included on our list, since many out-of-state firms have active South Carolina attorneys.
Most large law firms consider the total number of attorneys nationwide, including non-lawyer support personnel, to arrive at their total statistics. Based on this perspective, the following criteria were used to obtain our list of top law firms in South Carolina, both for attorney count and revenue:
Full-time active attorneys nationwide.
Full-time active attorneys in all offices nationwide.
Total gross revenue.
South Carolina’s Largest Law Firm
Baker Donelson is the largest law firm in South Carolina. It was formed in 1955 when Daniels, McGowan and Sprott of Charleston, Morrison and Foster of Florence and Coit and Grooms of Columbia merged into one law firm. The following decade the firm was named South Carolina Bar’s "Outstanding Local Law Firm" and today it has more than 600 attorneys and 19 offices.
One of the main areas of practice of Baker Donelson is litigation. Baker Donelson’s litigation department is one of the largest in the Eastern United States. Its two South Carolina offices have 23 litigators. One of their clients has stated that the firm can "almost go through the checklist of [his] low-risk, high-end cases with [the firm’s] lawyers." The firm has also been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as the ‘Best Law Firm’ in the country.
Baker Donelson has also been consistently recognized as one of the nation’s 50 "Midsize Powerhouses," one of the nation’s "Most Feared Laws Firms," and one of the "Basketball 100." The firm’s "most feared" lawyers include: Mark Adams (Employment and Labor), LaTonia Simmons (Commercial Litigation), and Chris Patterson (Real Estate).
The firm’s Charleston Office has been located at 28 Broad Street since 1992. It serves as the firm’s primary office in South Carolina. It is home to 52 attorneys. The office’s practice areas include: Bankruptcy, Business Litigation, Commercial Lending, Employment, Labor & Pensions, Environmental Regulation, Employment Litigation, Government Relations, Intellectual Property, Mergers & Acquisitions, Public Finance, Real Estate, Tax, Transportation & Logistics, and Water Law. The firm’s Charleston Office has been recognized for its high level of professionalism.
Baker Donelson’s Columbia Office was established in 1986. The office has 32 attorneys and represents individuals and organizations. The office’s practice areas include: Commercial Finance, escheatment, Real Estate, and Tax.
The firm’s Myrtle Beach Office, which opened in 1999, has grown to 12 attorneys. The office has been recognized for its "strong sense of team spirit, hard work and professionalism." The office’s practice areas include: Commercial Litigation and Business Transactions.
The firm has six additional offices that are located outside of South Carolina and one office based in London. Baker Donelson has reviewed and edited some of its publications from its "Your Law" section and made them available in Spanish.
Key Practices and Areas of Expertise
The largest firms employ hundreds of lawyers and are prepared to handle almost any legal issue from their downtown Columbia office. At the top of the list in size and diversity are Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, Nelson Mullins and Turner Padget, all with familiar names, histories and large law school recruiting budgets.
Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd is a regional firm with a national reach. The firm’s attorneys are widespread in their practice areas and expertises, representing clients such as Bank of America in litigation matters; Continental Tire North America in the defense of products liability, commercial and business tort cases; Nephrology Associates of South Carolina in government relations and healthcare regulatory matters; and JRL Enterprises in land use and commercial real estate development litigation.
Nelson Mullins’ construction and government contracts industry group, led by partner Michael C. Smith, has decades of experience advising clients across the spectrum, including owners, contractors, architects, engineers, and developers on procurement, contract formation and negotiation, contract administration and compliance, schedule delay and acceleration, and dispute resolution, among other issues.
Turner Padget, founded in 1928, operates offices across the state. In addition to its well-established corporate and labor practices, Turner Padget has emerging practices in healthcare, intellectual property, and affinity for owner’s representation services in the construction industry after its real estate, construction, and bonded and uninsured contractor practices merged this past spring.
Firm Size and Coverage Comparison
A significant aspect that distinguishes these large law firms from smaller or regional firms is their scalability. They have the capacity to handle larger and more complex cases by drawing on a broad range of practice areas and practice groups. For example, they can easily embed a tax lawyer in a litigation case or vice versa, or they can quickly assemble a larger team of litigators if a case goes to trial.
When examining their reach, these large law firms in South Carolina extend well beyond the state, servicing clients across the Southeast and, in some cases, around the country and internationally. For instance, Nelson Mullins has 26 offices throughout the United States, as well as in Columbia and Charleston, and operates abroad in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Similarly, HaynesBoone has established international offices in Bahrain, Canada, China, Korea and Vietnam, while Smith Moore Leatherwood has a presence in North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia.
Larger firm systems treat their South Carolina-based practices as part of a broad network. This means that , in many instances, work done out of a local office is run completely through the national or international heads of practice, with the local office providing support. As larger systems streamline their South Carolina offices and operate larger, centralized teams, business development work will become increasingly difficult for local offices.
On the other hand, smaller and boutique firms, while lacking the sophisticated internal infrastructure of larger firms, are closer to their clients and often offer the same kind of trusted advisor relationship. The sophistication of larger law firms allows them to operate multiple lines of business, while smaller firms’ "boutique" practice groups offer deep but narrow firms in the market. Often, larger firms will add "broad" practices in a limited number of offices, while smaller firms will have a niche practice in every office where they operate.
The competition in South Carolina will continue to be strong in coming years, though the winds will blow in all directions.
Clientele and Sector Distribution
These eminent law firms serve a variety of clients and industries, including the following:
• Energy and utilities clients include Duke Energy, Diversified Energy, Dominion Energy, Energtek, Florida Power & Light, Nortel, SCE&G, Southern Co and TimberRock. Notable energy services and technology clients include DCS Energy, Dominion Nuclear Solutions Inc., Cowan Systems, Kruger Inc., Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Thermal Energy Corp., Southeast Biofuel and Vanguard.
• Clients in the transportation sector include ATS Software, Brownstone Furniture, Carolina Logistics, Coker’s Chapel and P&C Roadways.
• Pharmaceutical and medical technology clients include Aegis Sciences, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Bayer CropScience, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Biogen Idec, Columbia Medical System Inc., McKesson Corp., Novartis Vaccines Solutions, Pfizer, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Tissue Regeneration.
• Notable high-profile clients include Boston Red Sox owner John W. Henry and Boston Globe publisher Martin Dunlop. Its attorneys successfully represented them in mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, in 2017 it was tapped to advise on the merger of Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas Holdings, and its attorneys served as lead antitrust counsel in the sale of Veritiv. The attorneys also represented Mistras Group Inc. in its acquisition by Thompson Street Capital Partners.
Trends to Watch Among South Carolina Law Firms
As law firms face increased competitive pressure from both large and small players, their operating environments are shifting in ways that may soon define a new era of legal practice. According to the American Lawyer, top corporate mergers and acquisitions dealt a heavy blow to many large firms last year, resulting in the disappearance of three firms from the Am Law 100—five firms were added in other M&A deals. More broadly, however, the ongoing growth of alternative legal service providers—including those that offer significant work delivery efficiencies such as e-discovery—have begun to change the makeup of corporate legal departments and their law firms. "Clients today expect [outside counsels’] rates to go down, and for every cost they squeeze out of those relationships, they expect them to invest that same dollar back in the relationship," says Scott Westfahl, faculty director at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession. "That creates an interesting pressure." The desire to leverage technology to cut expenses is not the only reason corporations are increasingly turning to non-traditional legal services. There is also the perceived need to have greater control over their business strategies. "Every major financial institution will tell you that they cannot afford to be vulnerable to the volatile economy of the outside legal world when it comes to complex litigation matters," says law professor Lawrence Cunningham, who teaches at both the George Washington University Law School and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Business. Although the contract-first model for buying legal services isn’t exactly new, it has gained traction in recent years. For example, the Bermuda alliance of Withers, which caters to high-net-worth individuals and trusts and estates, has more room in its budget for top partners, whereby its clients get a cap on costs, according to The American Lawyer. Indeed, "mergers and cost-containment measures are creating larger and larger firms and operations," says Robert Milligan, Chair of Seyfarth’s Trade Secrets, Privacy & Cybersecurity practice. "However, like their clients, law firms need to be more tech savvy and embrace the Web and other digital technologies if they are to gain a competitive edge." Large South Carolina firms, in turn, are adapting to changes in the marketplace. In Augusta, South Carolina’s largest city, firms across the state are doing everything they can to be chosen first, Four firms are headquartered in Augusta: Adams&Graham, Fulcher, O’Bryan, and Martin, Snow, Flemming, Austin, and Harris. In Columbia, Lancaster and Isgett, P.A.; Nexsen Pruet, P.A.; and McAngus Goudel…. are All headquartered in Columbia. In both instances, these three law firms are peppering their websites with blogs. Online content marketing is currently one of the most popular law firm-advertising strategies.
Predictions for the Future of Legal Services
To assess the future, one must take a look at the past. Historically, the status of a law firm is precariously tied to the health of the economy. A recession is rarely a positive for the legal industry with cuts in spending by businesses and capital that dry up as businesses become more conservative following an economic downturn. And while the market has been operating under the auspices of a recovering economy since the end of the Great Recession in 2008, a simple look at the latest jobs report, the trade war with China, and the recent government shutdown highlighted that the recovery has hit its limits. As the American Bar Association points out: Today’s clients want to know that their attorneys can provide value that aligns with their corporate strategies rather than just manage their litigation. In the face of this is a legal industry that for years was stuck on billable hour when the idea of "value" became almost as esoteric as the idea of "quality." The ABA senior editor Susan Vadino posits that "[m]ore than ever, clients are demanding reliable metrics to evaluate value , quality, and service." What this means is that South Carolina law firms, from Baker Donelson to McAngus Goudelock & Courie, will be required to shift their business model yet again to provide their clients with the strategic planning and performance metrics that will secure their position as the go-to-counsel for any business operation. All in all the numbers alone suggest a solid (if slightly extended) recovery is likely over the next few years. The unemployment rate remained steady from the beginning of 2018 into the beginning of 2019, edging downward from 3.9% nationally at the beginning of the reporting year to 3.7% – an improvement that should translate into an increase capital and business investment on the part of many South Carolina businesses. While the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 has long since abated, the legacy of a still-struggling economy may necessitate a more palatable approach to legal contracts, settlements, and even long-term employment for South Carolina corporations which will pay dividends in advancing the profession down the road.
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