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Berry, Quackenbush &
Stuart, P.A. was formed in February, 1995 as a result of the merger
of two well-known and well-respected Columbia,
S.C. law firms: Berry,
Dunbar, & Jordan,
P.A. and Adams, Quackenbush, Herring
& Stuart, P.A. The resulting law firm has evolved over the years
and increased both the scope of its practice and globalized its
abilities. What began primarily as a business law firm has evolved
into a true full service law firm providing consultation in virtually
all areas of law.
Our firm still
provides excellent assistance to our business clients in such areas
as business litigation, foreclosure, collection, real estate,
governmental relations and transactional problems. We also provide
our individual clients expert assistance with litigation, probate and consumer issues. Our litigation department
provides individuals with help in such diverse areas as product liability, civil
consumer law and workers’ compensation.
While over the
years the overall focus of the firm has shifted to a greater emphasis
on personal legal issues and litigation, our firm still maintains a
strong and thriving corporate, real estate, governmental relations
and business client base. We believe that a balanced and diverse
client base increases our ability to serve all types of clients.
Our mission here at BQS is to provide invariably excellent legal
services and advice at the most reasonable rates possible. It is our
goal and our mission to pursue our clients’ rights and interests
relentlessly and to be ever vigilant in their defense and protection.
This is what we mean when we say here at BQS, "We’re about our
clients’ business."
Excellence,
especially legal excellence, does not happen without planning and
determination. More importantly, legal excellence does not come about
unless it is part of the law firm’s culture. The culture that we at
BQS have developed is that excellent work is standard and average
work is substandard. Additionally, legal excellence comes about as
the result of factors in addition to firm culture. These factors
include education, experience, and motivation. We constantly require
more of ourselves and each other than is required of us by the courts
or our clients.
As to
education, all of our attorneys are highly educated, having done well
in law school. Legal education cannot stop there, however. The Law is
a living, growing, evolving system. It is constantly changing. To
stay abreast of these changes the South Carolina Supreme Court
requires that South Carolina attorneys attend 14 hours of continuing
legal education annually. At BQS, however, we encourage our attorneys
to attend 28 hours of continuing legal education annually. We also
have sent some of our attorneys back to law school for further
studies in their fields of expertise so they can better serve our
clients’ needs.
Additionally,
at BQS we believe that while education is vital, there is no
substitute for experience in the practice of law. We believe more experienced
attorneys bring both intellect and practicality to the task of
solving our clients’ problems and exploiting their opportunities to
the greatest effect and with the least cost. Experienced attorneys are
more capable in ways that cannot be duplicated by mere education. For
that reason our 7 lawyers average over 29 years of legal experience
among them. That is half a millennium of experience our firm can
bring to bear on clients’ issues. We use in-house seminars and
in-house brief banks to assure that our firm’s total experience is
brought collectively to bear on any problem.
Finally, no
matter how educated or experienced a firm’s attorneys are they still
need to be motivated to invest the long hours and rigorous thought
that is the bedrock of legal excellence. We try to gear compensation
and quality-of-life bonuses such as extended leaves and gifts to
include more than the bottom line. We have built an atmosphere of
collegiality and cooperation that stresses a team approach to helping
the client. We try to encourage a more civic-minded and egalitarian
spirit amongst our attorneys by rewarding excellence in any endeavor
whether it leads to increased firm income or not. In this way, we
believe we motivate our attorneys to constantly strive for excellence
in both service, spirit and innovation.
These three
factors, education, experience and motivation, must mesh so that a
firm culture of excellence develops that is daily and universally
reinforced from the top down and from side to side. To further such a
culture we stress and reward innovation, loyalty and ethics. We
believe that it is our drive for excellence for the mere sake of
excellence that sets us apart from other law firms. We believe that
such an approach is the only way to practice law.
It is our
mission to pursue our clients’ rights and interests not just
vigorously, but relentlessly. Our goal is that this pursuit be based
upon and reveal an excellence of ability, expertise and ethics
unparalleled in South Carolina. We will always be about our clients’
business - in matters great or small. We will be ever vigilant for
our clients’ interests and needs. We will treat every client’s
problem not only as our own, but also as an opportunity to earn our clients’
respect, appreciation and allegiance. Innovation, creativity, and
ability are our watchwords. Success is our goal.
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