Leaphart, who toured the Southeast as a bass guitarist with the band Five Way Friday before attending law school, has served since 2008 as co-chair of the division’s “Justice Jam Committee.” The annual fund-raising concert features local bands that have at least one attorney among their musicians. This year the concert proceeds went to Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands.

The Young Lawyers Division consists of attorneys younger than 36. It coordinates pro bono and community work. Stars of the Quarter awards go to lawyers such as Leaphart who serve on one of the division’s committees.

Leaphart is a 2004 graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law. He’s part of Sowell Gray’s workers’ compensation team. Sowell Gray is the only firm in South Carolina to be endorsed by the National Workers’ Compensation Defense Network, which provide a network across the United States and Canada of reputable workers’ compensation law firms.

About Sowell Gray

Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

COLUMBIA, SC –

Leadership Columbia is a program through the Columbia Chamber of Commerce that brings together up-and-coming young business people to help them connect more deeply with their community. Over the course of a year, each class attends sessions about everything from education to the environment. Class members also participate in a group project aimed at improving the Midlands.

The Glenn Jacobus Award goes to the class member who consistently exhibits outstanding leadership throughout the year. The recipient, who’s selected by a class vote, seeks to build relationships with peers, demonstrates outstanding commitment to the class project, exhibits enthusiasm and demonstrates sincere interest in community.

Haigler, a Midlands native and a graduate of the Mississippi College School of Law, joined Sowell Gray in September 2007. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Carolina Carillon Holiday Parade and volunteers his legal services with Hannah House, a faith-based transitional housing facility serving women and their children from Columbia and the surrounding communities.

About Sowell Gray

Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

Tyson was appointed to the House in 2008 and 2009 as a representative of the Government Law Section. This month he was elected by his peers to represent South Carolina’s 5^th Judicial Circuit, which is composed of Richland and Kershaw counties.

The House of Delegates meets at least twice a year and establishes policy for the Bar. Tyson, whose practice areas are regulatory and administrative law, will begin his two-year term July 1.

“We’re pleased that Rob’s peers have selected him to serve in this important capacity,” Sowell Gray Managing Partner Cal Watson said. “His service in this important area reflects his – and Sowell Gray’s – commitment to the Bar, its principles and its programs.”

Tyson is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and the University of Mississippi School of Law. He joined Sowell Gray in 2001. He also serves as a member of the Richland One School Board.

About Sowell Gray

Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

COLUMBIA, SC –

Beard was officially inducted in March, during the American Bar Association’s Workers’ Compensation Mid-Winter Conference. He became the first attorney to represent South Carolina in the organization.

The College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers honors lawyers who have distinguished themselves representing plaintiffs or defendants or acting as judges in workers’ compensation cases. Fellows must have practiced workers’ compensation law for at least 20 years to be considered to join.

Beard attended Louisiana State University and graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern State University. He earned his law degree at the Emory University School of Law.

Best Lawyers in America has recognized Beard’s skills as a workers’ compensation attorney by including him in its annual publication every year since 2008. His other practice areas are appellate advocacy, employment law and alternative dispute resolution.

About Sowell Gray

Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

About The College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers

The College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers honors attorneys who have demonstrated to peers, the bar, bench and public that they possess the highest professional qualifications and ethical standards, character, integrity and leadership.  Those chosen as fellows must have demonstrated significant evidence of scholarship, teaching, lecturing, and/or distinguished published writings on Workers’ Compensation or related fields.   For more information, go to www.collegeofworkerscompensationlawyers.org/

The publication is an internationally recognized guide to the legal profession.

Additionally, four Sowell Gray members – Betsy Gray, Biff Sowell, Bobby Stepp and Cal Watson – will be recognized as Leaders in their Fields.

“Viewed as one of the top litigation boutiques in the state, this group of high-profile litigators continues to grow in reputation and stature while maintaining its client focus,” past editions of the guide have said about the firm, which is rated this year as among the state’s best in commercial litigation.

The firm and Sowell have been ranked every year since 2006. Gray and Stepp have been ranked since 2007. Watson is ranked for the second time this year. “It’s a tribute to our strength as a firm, as well as to the skills of our individual attorneys, to be included in this guide on such a consistent basis,” said Watson, the firm’s managing partner. “We’re pleased that the guide recognizes our range of experience, as well as our commitment to serving clients regardless of size, from multinational corporations to small businesses.”

The firm and its lawyers – eight members and 12 associates – had to stand up to a stringent review to earn the guide’s ranking. The process includes in-depth interviews with clients and lawyers conducted by a team of more than 50 full-time researchers. Attorneys are rated based on legal ability, professional conduct, client service, commercial awareness, diligence, commitment and other qualities clients value. The process is designed to ensure that only the world’s best lawyers and firms are included in the guide, Chambers says.

About Sowell Gray: Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

Biff Sowell, Betsy Gray, Bobby Stepp, Becky Laffitte, Cal Watson and Monty Todd were listed in the annual publication, which is distributed across the United States and reaches more than 13 million readers. It’s the third consecutive year that the six have earned Super Lawyer designations.

Biff Sowell, Betsy Gray and Bobby Stepp were among South Carolina’s top 25 attorneys, based on point totals after a three-step process. Betsy Gray and Bobby Stepp were among the top 25 last year as well.

The six Sowell Gray attorneys named to the Super Lawyers list and their practice areas are:

Betsy Gray – Business Litigation, General Litigation, and Criminal Defense: White Collar.
Biff Sowell – General Litigation, Business Litigation, and Business/Corporate.
Bobby Stepp – Business Litigation.
Becky Laffitte – Personal Injury Defense: Products, Transportation/Maritime, Construction Litigation
Monty Todd – Personal Injury Defense: Products, Health Care, Business Litigation
Cal Watson – Business Litigation, Professional Liability: Defense

Super Lawyers is a listing of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Selection is based on nominations from peers, independent research and a blue-ribbon review by attorneys in the same practice areas. Each candidate is evaluated on 12 indicators.

About Sowell Gray:

Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com

View the original article at thecolumbiastar.com

Bobby Stepp Bobby Stepp Attorney Bobby Stepp, former president of the South Carolina Philharmonic Board of Directors, remains on the board who managed a six–continent, nearly three–year search to find Morihiko Nakahara, the orchestra’s fifth music director.

Stepp was born in the old Columbia Hospital at the corner of Hampton and Harden. His father Tom Stepp was a home builder who moved down from Hendersonville, N.C., to work with Bagnal Builders as the director of residential construction. Stepp Drive, a few blocks south of Bradley School, was part of the family presence.

Stepp’s parents had two other sons. Melvin worked in hospital administration. Thomas has been the secretary of the USC Board of Trustees for the past several presidents.

Living on the 3400 block of Devine Street, Stepp had an easy time getting to class at Schneider Elementary and Hand Junior High Schools. By the time he was in Dreher High School, his family had moved to Hampton Hills. But that new location made convenient sense while he was working at the Gulf gas station on the corner of Garners Ferry and Old Woodlands, close to the Veterans Hospital. He stayed at the Gulf station long enough to learn basic automotive mechanics and maintenance.

Stepp played B–team and junior varsity football, but he chose the debate team over the varsity football team.

Stepp stayed with his debating skills for his first two years of USC. He declared history his major, but as he moved closer to graduation, he found he could more readily graduate if he chose English instead of history, which he did.

For the two years following college graduation, Stepp took time off, basking in the confidence provided by his 300+ draft lottery number. He waited tables, drove a cab, and picked up permanent street smarts while he chose between graduate school in the liberal arts and law school.

Law school and its well–defined career track was Stepp’s chosen direction. While a law student, Stepp was a research assistant for Judge Owens Cobb, and he clerked for the McNair Law Firm.

Once out of law school, Stepp went to work full–time with the McNair Firm. He was sent by the firm to Hilton Head to work in the McNair branch run by partner Richard Woods. Stepp stayed in the Hilton Head office for two years, gaining status as the island’s 13th lawyer.

In 1987, Stepp and a few other McNair lawyers spun off to form their own firm, what evolved into Sowell Gray Stepp Laffitte, LLC, popularly called Sowell Gray. The firm has 20 lawyers and about another 40 people on its support staff.

Stepp began conversations with his wife Meredith Manning when her family was represented by Stepp partner Elizabeth Van Doren Gray. A lawyer herself, Manning is part of the in–house general counsel’s office at South Carolina BlueCross BlueShield.

This past year Stepp and his wife have finished construction on their mountain home in Gerton, N.C., about midway between Asheville and Hendersonville. It’s a great place, Stepp relishes, to do nothing. There’s always some walking and a lot of reading, but on the whole the place is dedicated to doing nothing — perfect for weekends when the S.C. Philharmonic is not playing.

From their house on Wateree in Wales Garden, the Stepps take to the streets most mornings at 5:45 for a long walk, roughly the same distance covered along each trek at the mountain house.

Hill has co-chaired committees for the South Carolina Bar Young Lawyer’s Division and currently serves on the South Carolina Bar Professional Responsibility Committee and Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee.  She is a 20007 graduate of Leadership Columbia.

She practices in the areas of professional liability, estate litigation and commercial litigation.

Hill is a 2000 graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law. She holds a bachelor’s in accounting from Clemson University.

About Sowell Gray
Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts in South Carolina. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.

Bess DuRant

A 2009 cum laude graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law, DuRant was a member of the Editorial Board for the South Carolina Law Review  and had an article published in the review. She also was a member of Phi Delta Phi International Legal Fraternity. DuRant holds a bachelor’s degree in politics with special attainment in commerce from Washington and Lee University. She graduated cum laude in 2002.

DuRant is a member of the American Bar Association and the Richland County Bar Association. She has been admitted to the South Carolina Bar.

About Sowell Gray
Located in Columbia’s historic Vista district, Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte LLC provides business and litigation representation in all state and federal trial and appellate courts. Founded in 1996, the firm serves clients ranging from multi-national corporations to small businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit sowellgray.com.