Annie focuses her practice on nursing home abuse and neglect, civil rights violations, and various personal injury matters. An experienced litigator, Annie worked for seven years as a trial attorney at the Charleston County Public Defender’s office, where she tried numerous cases to jury verdict and zealously fought for the rights of more than 1,000 individuals.
Annie is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell. She was recognized by Super Lawyers and was invited to accept inclusion within the “Top 40 Under 40” by the National Trial Lawyers. She received the 2021 Emerging Leader award from the South Carolina Women Lawyers Association (SCWLA) and was recognized by Charleston Business Magazine’s 2021 Women in Business for her important contributions to the legal community. Annie received the “Star of the Quarter” award from the South Carolina Bar Young Lawyers Division in 2019 and that same year, was named the “Juvenile Public Defender of the Year” for the state of South Carolina.
While representing incarcerated children, she went beyond simply defending their cases and sought to reform the juvenile justice system by challenging the constitutionality of solitary confinement and the use of restraint chairs in juvenile jails. Her criminal justice reform efforts resulted in the closure of the fifty-year-old dilapidated Charleston County Juvenile Detention Center, ending decades of unconstitutional confinement of youth. Annie also increased access to books in juvenile jails by collecting over 4,000 young adult books to build or revamp libraries in juvenile jails within Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville –also for the benefit of her young clients.
During law school, Annie volunteered at the Charleston County Public Defenders office, and One80 Place homeless shelter’s legal clinic helping homeless individuals with various legal matters, and was recognized at her law school graduation for performing over 500 hours of pro bono service. Annie is admitted to the South Carolina Bar and U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, and is involved in the Charleston County Bar Association, Berkeley County Bar Association, and the SC Association for Justice. She is on the SC Bar’s Elder Law committee and a former member of the SC Bar’s Protecting Our Youth Committee, Charleston County Juvenile Drug Court, and a graduate of the SC Bar’s Leadership Academy (Class of 2018). Her current community involvement is extensive and includes serving as a board member of Charleston Legal Access, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to expanding legal services for low-income South Carolinians.
Education
JD, Charleston School of Law
BA, University of South Carolina
