Joe Brewer

For most of his career, Joe has worked on the same street where his late grandmother was born. First in the courtrooms of the Clement F. Haynsworth Federal Courthouse on E. Washington St., in Greenville, South Carolina, and now in his office located on that same historic road.

Although Joe grew up in the Baltimore Washington metropolitan area, the son of a career FBI agent, his grandmother was born in a modest house on the back property of a small church on the corner of E. Washington and Laurens Road. When Joe came to Furman University in 1993 to play baseball, he never could have imagined his future professional connection with these deep, Greenville family roots.

Prior to opening his practice, Joe worked for the Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the District of South Carolina. Joe prosecuted serious multi-state and OCDETF drug conspiracy, bombing, child pornography, Hobbs Act robbery, identity theft, firearms, and racketeering cases. Most notably, Joe successfully prosecuted and tried the District’s first-ever Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering (VICAR) case against a national gang and also prosecuted a high profile serial bomber in Anderson County for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and terroristic threats. In addition to responsibly prosecuting his cases, Joe had statewide responsibility for the District’s reentry, drug court, and crime prevention programming, including the oversight of four annual reentry job fairs. Joe spoke extensively about the role of the prosecutor, issues in reentry, and regarding issues of substantive criminal law, including at Harvard University and the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) in Washington, D.C.

Joe had a decorated career at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he was both an Articles Editor for its Law Review and a member of the National Moot Court Team and where he received the highest grade (CALI Award) in four of his classes. Among other academic accolades, Joe earned the prestigious Compleat Lawyer and Claude Sapp Awards.

After declining an associate position with the Wall Street firm, Milbank, LLP, in New York City, Joe clerked for the Honorable P. Michael Duffy, United States District Court Judge, out of law school. During his time with Judge Duffy in Charleston, Joe had the privilege to work on the historic Charleston County Voting Rights Act case, which found that the election process for Charleston County Council had discriminatory effects on the composition of that legislative body.

Joe joined Hunton & Williams, LLP, in its Charlotte Office, as a business litigation associate. He practiced extensively in the courts of North and South Carolina and represented major commercial clients, including Bank of America, Wachovia, General Electric, Phillip Morris, and Stock Building Supply, on a national level in cases as far as Minnesota. His practice involved both business consultation and corporate defense litigation, including unfair and deceptive trade practices, employment law, and construction matters.

Joe returned to Greenville to work for the Honorable Bruce Howe Hendricks, Federal District Court Judge. He was afforded extensive responsibilities in the year’s long mediation of the Savannah Harbor deepening project as well as a complex multi-district class action lawsuit. In his time with the court, he participated in hundreds of employment, social security, patent, and civil rights lawsuits. Joe was also a part of the original steering committee that launched one of the country’s earliest pretrial federal drug courts, The Bridge, and authored many of its original governing documents and policies.

Joe has been published twice in national law reviews on issues in criminal law and has an Amazon bestseller about the definition of sport. He has been invited to present at two separate TEDxGreenville events, the New Media Expo, and has a background in music production and distribution.