Driving Directions

Ken Anthony began his legal career, like scores of other aspiring young lawyers, by performing such mundane but essential tasks as checking titles for real estate transactions.

Now the Spartanburg County resident is poised to become president of the South Carolina Bar in 2003.

Anthony, 48, will assume office on July 1, 2003 and relinquish it on June 30, 2004. He is the eighth Spartanburg County resident to head the Bar since its origin in 1884, the most recent being T. Emmet Walsh (1987-88) and Louis P. Howell (1976-77).

Since being admitted to the Bar in 1978 following graduation from the University of South Carolina Law School, Anthony has built a reputation as one of the state’s most accomplished plaintiff’s attorneys.

Anthony was one of just five Spartanburg lawyers to be selected by a survey of their peers for inclusion in the 9th edition of “The Best Lawyers in America 2001-2002.” The legal referral guide is published biennially by Woodward/White, Inc., an Aiken-based publishing and research company.

Bob Wells, executive director of the 10,600-member Bar, said Anthony is known among his peers as a natural leader.

“Ken has already demonstrated strong leadership while sitting on the Bar’s Board of Governors (as treasurer),” Wells said. “It’s wonderful to have such an accomplished solo practitioner stepping forward to lead the Bar.”

Anthony has indeed cut a wide swath across the state’s legal landscape.

Teaming with attorney Pat Knie, with whom he shares office space, in 2000 he helped persuade a judge to order the return of as much as $100 million seized from state taxpayers by government agencies trying to collect debts. The ruling is on appeal, with a final resolution expected this year.

Among Anthony’s high-profile clients are Spartanburg developer Arthur Cleveland, who he shepherded through negotiations with City Council over the Renaissance Project.

The Anthony Law Firm also handles smaller cases across the state, including alleged injuries and deaths caused by defective products, contract disputes, serious automobile accidents and workplace injuries.

Though he couldn’t have known what his stint as a gopher and title-checker at a local law firm almost 30 years ago would lead to, Anthony clearly had ideas.

Transferring to Wofford College in 1974, Anthony got the law firm job, he says, because he “had a hunch” he would like the idea of helping people get justice.

“I liked it very much,” he recalled with a smile. “I like the idea of helping people work out their everyday problems.”

To that end, as Bar president Anthony plans to actively encourage attorneys to go into high schools to provide students with legal knowledge about the basic functions of an adult.

“I call it Life 101,” he said. “I have seen people run into problems that are obvious and easy to avoid, and yet they didn’t know how. Maybe they’ve gotten themselves in over their heads in debt, bought a car with no warranty, bought a house without knowing what to look for, that kind of thing.

“The Bar is the ideal agency to be providing that information to schools.”


Tom Langhorne can be reached at 582-4511 Ext. 7221 or at tom.langhorne@shj.com.