2025 Lunch & Learns

In our first hour, Melissa Mosier will present “Level Up Your Depositions:  Strategies for Success.”  She will provide practical examples and tips to maximize time and get the most out of depositions. From the deposition notice, preparation and take the deposition, this presentation is for all practice areas and levels.  You’ll learn to turn the often dreaded task into an opportunity to discover key information and move your case forward.  Matthew Korn and April Sampson team up for hour two of our seminar.  This unique presentation is designed for Lawyer Moms and Dads and will explore the unique mental health challenges faced by lawyer parents.  You’ll gain strategies for managing stress, setting boundaries, and maintaining well-being while juggling professional and family responsibilities.  We’ll address the impact of burnout, the importance of self-care, and offer resources which support lawyer parents in achieving sustainable work-life balance. 

Filing in Family Court?  How well do you know your rules?  Join Annabelle Robertson as she reviews five key Family Court Rules that can ensnare even the savviest of litigators. 

This powerful seminar will provide background and analysis of the various types of birth injuries, their causes, and the potential claims that may be brought. You’ll get insightful guidance and practical tips on this challenging area of personal injury law.

Join Heather Hite Stone and Kelley Leddy for a comprehensive two-hour lunch-and-learn session on best practices for representing minors in common pleas court. This program will cover key aspects of the representation process, including confidentiality considerations during the investigation, the appointment of a guardian ad litem, court approval of settlements, and proper disbursement of settlement funds.

Join Stephanie Brinkley for a two-part seminar that will provide you with the practical tools to spot and assess key issues in same-sex marriage custody cases, as well as understanding and ethically using AI in law firm billing. Part One will help you to issue spot and protect your client’s modern-day family needs in the often complex arena of same-sex divorce and custody cases.  Part Two will teach you how to use Artificial Intelligence effectively and ethically in billing.  Modern technology can seem like a dream come true, but there are traps in AI that can derail your practice and imperil your license when billing clients. Come learn how to use AI the right way!

This important seminar will cover several tips and traps for estate planning, probate, elder law, and real estate attorneys as they navigate unusual and often complex issues that result when real estate law intersects probate, estates, trust, and elder law, including titling property held by entities, estates, trusts, and individuals both young and old, and the interplay with the Rules of Professional Conduct. Many of these nuances aren’t spelled out in the Probate Code, caselaw, or other published resources. Other key issues to be addressed include those specific to older parties in a transaction, such as competency and the use of POAs, especially with regard to elder fraud, and the Medicaid look-back period, as well as SC’s Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) and the impacts of real estate transactions on established estate planning.

This seminar will cover South Carolina state law entity selection, including, but not limited to, the characteristics of sole proprietorships, partnerships, c-corporations, s-corporations, limited liability companies, and professional associations.  Further, there will be a discussion of default taxation status for certain state law entities, and tax potential elections (e.g., s-corporation election) that may be made by certain entities. Other practical considerations related to the types of businesses that are generally suitable for specific entities and the different types of governance structures available will also be discussed.   

Passed in 1986, the Tort Claims Act governs all litigation against the various government entities of South Carolina.  Over the years it has become a complex web of caselaw, exceptions and contradictions. Kirk Battle has 14 years’ experience litigating for government entities and will give a thorough breakdown of key South Carolina issues, as well as provide a comparison to other states.  The seminar will be both informative and practical and help attorneys grasp a framework for moving forward under this important legislation.

Join Stoney Bachman, a Board-Certified Entomologist, for a unique seminar on issues for homeowners and especially businesses regarding the impact of wood destroying organisms (WDOs) primarily subterranean termites and wood rot. Damage from WDOs is very real in South Carolina and is often seen in construction defect and maintenance cases.  Joining Stoney will be the Assistant Director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation.  He will cover topics related to how his department is involved with WDO litigation, how to efficiently make a FOIA request and how to successfully interface with his Department. If you practice in the construction defect arena or represent businesses or homeowners in cases involving WDO damages, you won’t want to miss this seminar.

This seminar will explore the evolving landscape of independent contractor classification in the gig economy and its impact on litigation in South Carolina. Attendees will gain insights into effective litigation strategies and potential challenges when handling cases involving gig economy workers and the independent contractor defense.

As an aide to a U.S. Navy admiral more than 30 years ago, Mark Fava learned important ethical principles about leadership. He has practiced law since 1994 and has used the wisdom he learned in the Navy combined with his love of the law and aviation as a career aviation attorney. In this seminar, Mr. Fava will discuss the principles of legacy leadership that he learned in the Navy and how those principles guided him through his 24-year career as a Naval Reserve Officer, his practice as a litigator, and as an in-house attorney for Delta Air Lines and The Boeing Company.

We are pleased to present this powerful program featuring insights from Legal Nurse Consultants Yvette Twum-Danso, PhD, RN, CCRN and Jacqueline Clancy, BSN, RN, WSOC who will provide personal injury litigators with the following key tools for prosecuting or defending medical malpractice or nursing home injury or neglect cases:

1. Decoding Standards of Care Guidelines: To understand medical management protocols, including procedural times, transfer protocols, and the role of the on-call team (physicians, nurses, and technicians) in preventing liability. 

2. Uncovering Red Flags in Facility Transfers: To identify system failures, documentation gaps, and deviations from guidelines that can strengthen or weaken a medical malpractice case. 

3. Analyzing Cases from a Clinically Active Perspective: To gain insights into how two nurse experts dissect case timelines, pinpoint critical decision-making moments, and provide expert analysis to support legal strategies.