C. Pierce Campbell

C. Pierce Campbell

Chief Executive Officer, Shareholder
Florence
  • 843-656-4429

Pierce Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of the firm, is a trusted advisor to startups and established businesses, providing strategic guidance to address challenges and prevent legal hurdles from escalating. With a practice across South Carolina, Pierce represents local small-to-midsize businesses, regional market leaders, and national companies. His practice spans corporate organization, business operations, mergers and acquisitions, and commercial litigation, with experience in corporate divorces, probate matters, and contractual litigation.

Pierce’s clients benefit from his practical, results-driven approach. He focuses on resolving issues efficiently while aligning legal strategies with business objectives. His ability to assemble and manage scalable, collaborative teams ensures each client receives tailored solutions.

As the firm’s CEO, Pierce leads the Executive Committee and oversees the work of the firm’s attorneys. He embodies the firm’s commitment to exceeding client expectations through accessibility and responsiveness.

Pierce’s was recognized in Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation (2024) and received a Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Rating™-AV®. Pierce has demonstrated exceptional leadership throughout his career, serving as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the McLeod Health Foundation, chairing the City of Florence Design Review Board, and leading as President of the Florence Kiwanis Club. His commitment to service and community engagement reflects his dedication both inside and outside the legal profession.

Notable achievements include leading corporate reorganizations and acquisitions, defending regional banks in high-stakes litigation, and securing favorable outcomes in complex business disputes. Pierce has also resolved novel legal issues in probate and administrative law, setting precedents that benefit clients statewide.

Pierce is deeply committed to South Carolina, where his professional excellence and community service have made a lasting impact.

Corporate Representation

  • Serves as outside counsel for regional manufacturing and distribution company, managing corporate reorganization, leading financing projects and negotiating contracts.
  • Represented regional subcontractor through a corporate reorganization and subsequent sale to national contractor.
  • Served as local counsel for international food and beverage company negotiating development, construction and operation of a food products facility in South Carolina.


Banking Litigation

  • Represented all large banks in South Carolina as part of a team that successfully dismissed a challenge to the state’s mortgage recordation system, protecting the ability of residents to continue obtaining mortgages in South Carolina.

Business Litigation

  • Served as lead trial counsel and continuing adviser for more than fifteen years for family members in a series of corporate, probate and partition cases related to a large family-owned farming and development business with assets of more than $15 million.
  • Successfully defended a trial for the board of stewards of a local church involving issues of corporate, property and ecclesiastical law.
  • Achieved favorable resolutions through mediation and motion practice in four pieces of litigation arising out of a failed, multimillion-dollar water-bottling business venture.
  • Successfully represented large regional bank in series of lawsuits regarding collection of more than $1 million operating debt against a local farming operation. The case involved very unique allegations of fraudulent signatures, missing guarantors, collateral sold without lien releases and claims of improper provision of information.
  • Obtained dismissal of lawsuit, upheld by South Carolina Supreme Court, brought by governmental entities against lenders, alleging improprieties with the lenders’ mortgage recording practices. The novel question in South Carolina lead to the court upholding the system in use, and thus preserving the mortgage lending market in South Carolina.

Administrative and Regulatory Law

  • Successfully represented a developer of a construction and demolition debris landfill in the South Carolina Administrative Law Court. A group of area residents challenged a permit granted by the Department of Health and Environmental Control after eight years of litigation and reviews. At trial, the developer's motion for an involuntary nonsuit (non-jury directed verdict) was granted on all alleged technical deficiencies of the permit. After the trial, the court ruled that the permit was compliant with the governing regulations, local ordinances and solid waste management plans. The case involved several unresolved questions related to the demonstration of need requirement for waste facilities and consistency with state and local solid waste management plans under newly enacted regulations.

Probate Litigation

  • Represented a beneficiary in arguing several novel issues of South Carolina law and obtained a successful outcome upheld on appeal.
  • University of South Carolina, J.D., 2004
  • University of Georgia, B.B.A., 2001
  • South Carolina Bar, 2004
  • United States District Court, District of South Carolina, 2004
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Judicial Circuit, 2005
  • American Bar Association Section of Litigation, Chair, Communications Team 2024-present; Chair, Virtual Programming Board 2021-2024; Regional CLE Programs chair 2018-2021; Division Director 2014-2018;Business Torts Committee co-chair, 2012-2014; First Chair Press Book Publishing Board co-chair, 2009-2012; Technology Committee, 2009-2010; Young Lawyer Leadership Program, 2007-2009.
  • South Carolina Bar, 12th Judicial Circuit Young Lawyer Steering Committee, 2009-2011.
  • Florence County Bar Association, member, 2004-present.
  • Young Professionals of Florence, member, 2006-2015.
  • City of Florence Design Review Board, chair 2017-2022; vice chair 2016-2017; member 2013-2022.
  • McLeod Foundation Board of Trustees, 2016-present and Chair, Finance & Investment Committee 2022-present.
  • McLeod Health Foundation Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, 2023-2026
  • Kiwanis Club of Florence, president, 2011-2012.
    • McLeod Health Foundation Board of Trustees, Chairman of Board of Trustees 2023-2026, Chair of Finance & Investment Committee 2022-2024, member 2016-present
  • Kiwanis Club of Florence, president, 2011-2012.
  • Best Lawyers in America, Commercial Litigation, 2024
  • Columbia Business Monthly's 50 Most Influential, 2020
  • Super Lawyers, South Carolina Rising Star, Business Litigation, 2012-2019
  • South Carolina Lawyers Weekly "Leadership in Law" Award, 2019
  • Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, 2016-2017
  • Florence Kiwanis Club, Kiwanian of the Year, 2008
  • Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Rating™-AV®

Articles

  • Accounting Today, "Advising clients on PPP loan forgiveness,” September 2020
  • SC Business Review Radio, “Lawyers Helping Entrepreneurs,” July 2017
  • ABA Section of Litigation, “When Associates Gain Trial Experience, Everyone Wins,” 2016
  • ABA Section of Litigation Business Development Video, “Handwrite Notes to Clients for a Personal Touch,” 2016
  • ACC Docket, “Succession Planning: A Joint Primer for the GC and Outside Lawyer,” July/August 2016
  • Rantings of a Partner and Pushback from the Associate, ABA Section of Litigation First Chair Press, Bart Greenwald ed., “The Client Relationship: Associates Care, Too,” 2011
  • Rantings of a Partner and Pushback from the Associate, ABA Section of Litigation First Chair Press, Bart Greenwald ed. “Trial Experience: Give it to Me!,” 2011
  • The Young Litigator: Tips on Rainmaking, Writing and Trial Practice, ABA Section of Litigation First Chair Press, “Introduction & Introduction to Writing” section, 2011
  • Business Torts Journal, Vol. 16, Number 2, ABA Section of Litigation, “HIGH ALERT!: Attorneys Must Be Aware of Potential Abuses of Email Technology,” Winter 2009
  • Expert Alert, Vol. 1, Number 2, “Expert Witness Fees: What is Reasonable,” ABA Section of Litigation, Summer 2005

Presentations & Speaking Engagements

  • “Business Torts CLE Seminar: Fiduciary Duties - Limiting Their Scope and Explaining Them to Others,” South Carolina Bar, October 2014
  • “Lender Liability to Municipalities in Subprime Foreclosure Crisis,” American Bar Association, 2008 

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Best Lawyers
In AmericaCommercial Litigation
2024

SC Super LawyersRising Star
2012-2019

Chambers &
Partners, USABusiness Litigation
2016-2017