Career Center

The 8th Circuit Public Defender’s Office includes Laurens, Greenwood, Newberry, and Abbeville Counties. I currently have a position open. The position includes full health insurance, dental, vision, and retirement benefits. Have student loans? Join us and you can have that noose around your neck forgiven under the public service loan forgiveness program! We also pay your bar license fee statement annually as well as for all of your mandatory annual CLE credits. I offer incredible flexibility which we can discuss at your interview. I also offer group outings throughout the year to build office morale (ex. Boat days on the lake, bowling, top golf, get togethers at restaurants, someone’s house, etc.). We also have a wonderful and very supportive staff. We have two investigators that are the best investigators I have ever worked with. You will never have to try a case alone (unless you want to), and the residents of our circuit (which it’s not mandatory you live within the circuit) enjoy a much lower cost of living compared to other areas of SC. We also enjoy lake life (there is a lake in all 4 of our counties). We have an incredible team of amazing humans who all get along and there’s no drama (what a plus!!). Salary depends on experience but just to give you an idea, I’m offering between $75k-$102k. That’s not even including the benefit package. I also encourage time off (especially for mental health) as appropriate. We also provide Westlaw. Truly, this is a great office to be apart of! Want to try cases? Not a problem- you have that opportunity in our circuit. I also invest in my lawyers and investigators. I will send you to national seminars (primarily through NACDL) and I try to send one lawyer a year to the prestigious National Criminal Defense College that is a premier 2 week trial college.  I invest in my lawyers because I truly want to have the strongest public defender’s office in the state, despite being a rural circuit. The lawyers in our office are stellar and you will learn from them and we hope to learn from you, too! We have Tristan Shaffer, Joel Broome, Callie West, Colie Stancil, Elizabeth Thomas, Rutledge Martin, Charles Verner, and Jane Merrill. We also have numerous private attorneys who hold contracts with our office. I love this group and feel so grateful to work alongside them! Our relationship with the Solicitor’s office is about as decent as it can be in an adversarial environment. Oh- and while I am totally here to support anyone on our team, I never micromanage.

If interested, please email me at my mouthful of an email address:
Cmcneill@8thcircuitpublicdefender.org and put in the subject line RESUME. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Must be a licensed attorney in the state of SC. 403s must either be completed or completed shortly after start date.