South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

The mandatory retirement age for judges, solicitors and public defenders in South Carolina is now 72. But last month, state Sen. Gerald Malloy, an attorney from Hartsville, pre-filed a bill that would eliminate the age requirement—ostensibly meaning that lawyers working for the state could keep showing up at the office until the day they keel over in their chairs. Last week, that bill moved to the senate Judiciary Committee.

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Add to the list of things divorcing couples will argue over: the dollar value of a goat.

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The journalist subpoenaed by Attorney General Alan Wilson this summer has filed a complaint against him alleging violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Act and seeking a long list of documents related to the ongoing settlement of James Brown’s estate.

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You may recall this summer’s South Carolina Policy Council report suggesting that the South Carolina General Assembly should spend less time in Columbia. Palmetto State lawmakers spend more time in session – an average of 143 days annually – than any other state legislature in the South and all but a few in the nation.

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While “admiralty and maritime law” might conjure the image of a peg-legged captain helming a three-masted clipper, Harold Creel can assure you it’s an area of the law that remains vital in the modern world. “People, when I tell them I do admiralty law, they say ‘That’s quaint,’ and I say, well it is a means by which trade is conducted, and that’s the way it’s going to be, barring the development of any new technology,” he said.

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If you’ve ever spent more time than you should reading posts on the Abnormal Use blog by the lawyers at Gallivan, White & Boyd, you’re in good company. The American Bar Association Journal recently named abormaluse.com to its inaugural Blawg Hall of Fame, with the authors citing it as one of 10 law blogs they “can’t imagine not making our favorites each year.”

Charleston School of Law hopes to enroll about a dozen students in a new master’s program focusing on admiralty and maritime law beginning next fall. The new program will begin ahead of the expected 2014 completion of the Panama Canal lock project, which will allow extra-large “Post-Panamax” ships to navigate the canal and thus have greater access to ports on the East coast.

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Considering South Carolina’s passion for historical preservation, it’s only natural that a law labeled elsewhere as “the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act” goes by “the Statute of Elizabeth” in the Palmetto State. It’s quite a poetic moniker for a rule that governs asset swapping, and was most recently applied in the case of a pool contractor trying to save his troubled marriage and dodge creditors. But why do South Carolina lawyers still use the statute’s 440-year-old name?

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In the long and distinguished history of American jurisprudence, we’re confident that only once has a retailer been able to dodge a liability action in part by successfully arguing that it had generously spread Snake-A-Way around the premises.

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Though we guess it will be a while before South Carolina hops on the magic bus of legal marijuana, it always helps to be prepared. After voters in Colorado and Washington passed ballot initiatives decriminalizing chronic earlier this month, citizens were left wondering how to apply the new law in their own lives.

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