There’s all sorts of jokes out there about lawyers and even some about lobbyists. Some polls show the third-lowest regarded profession in the United States is lawyer. The second lowest, is lobbyist.
Those perceptions about both those professions are something the new executive director of the South Carolina Trial Lawyer’s Association is trying to change. Now an advocate for a non-profit association of trial lawyers (and a registered lobbyist principal,) Mike Hemlepp of Winnsboro is also a practicing attorney.
Though he’s spent the last several years as a partner in the Chester law firm of Hamilton, Delleney and Hemlepp, many might know Hemlepp from his presence in the community, or the years he spent in the Sixth Circuit Solicitor’s office, a post that included Fairfield County.
“The S.C. Trial Lawyers had an executive director in Linda Franklin, who worked for the Association for 28 years. About six years ago, I talked to (my wife) Betsy and told her I was thinking about leaving the Solicitor’s Office, and said if I could, I would probably get out of law and work for a non-profit organization,” Hemlepp said. He had been assisting non-profits on the side for some 20 years.
When his wife asked him what job he wanted, he told her he would like to be the executive director of the SCTLA.
After the former director left, a new director came in and stayed for one year. During that time, Hemlepp was on the SCTLA Board of Governors, and when executive director Kim Aydelette was named, Hemlepp became the public education chairman of the SCTLA.
“I really enjoyed the work that I was doing, and I believed in the goals and the mission of the Association, Hemlepp said.
When Aydelette left to become the chief operating officer for the First Steps organization, Hemlepp put in his bid to become the next director.
“Here was my dream job, and here was an opening and an opportunity for me,” he said. Support from his wife and phone calls from fellow attorneys urging him to apply for the job convinced him he was on the right course.
Hemlepp was named SCTLA executive director in January and officially took the position February 1. Before he can be the director full time, he has to close out his law practice with the firm of Hamilton, et al.
The magnitude of the change to his life hasn’t escaped Hemlepp’s notice.
“This is a huge transition; I’m giving up a career that I’ve had for 17 years for a brand-new one. But, it’s the kind of work that I’ve always enjoyed, and it’s for an organization that I believe in,” he said.
Hemlepp talked about his vision of what he believes the SCTLA should be. All lawyer jokes aside, Hemlepp said an association of trial lawyers, and indeed the profession of attorney, has its opponents and detractors.
“Our opponents are incredibly wealthy, multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporations, who have spent billions and billions of dollars to protect themselves from the court system. And their means of attack is by telling the public that they can’t trust lawyers,” Hemlepp said.
“But if you really want to know who the trial lawyers are, we’re the lawyers that represent people. We don’t represent companies. If a person needs a lawyer in family court or criminal court or in a real estate matter or if they got injured, they’re going to hire a trial lawyer. I’m proud of the people I’m going to be serving,” Hemlepp said.
Hemlepp’s primary goal as executive director of the South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association will be to refine their legislative agenda and create a focus and a cohesive message for the organization. Even though he is registered as what is known as a lobbyist principal, the SCTLA has lobbyists who present data and argue their points with the legislators on a daily basis.
After all, as Hemlepp rightly points out, the opponents of the lawyers, those multi-national companies have their own lobbyists at the statehouse, too.
Hemlepp also sees one of his major duties as executive director as an extension of his public education efforts, where he helps to educate the lawyers in the association so they can better educate and inform their potential clients.
“Educating our membership, so they can educate their clients, is the most powerful way of getting our message out to the public, because every one of our clients has a momma and a daddy and cousins and co-workers. That’s who we care about, the people of South Carolina. We care about them more than we care about the rich corporations,” he said.
Hemlepp also hopes to educate the general public about the issues the SCTLA is fighting to address in the legislature.
“If we try to go out there and just try to make people like lawyers, I don’t know that that benefits the public debate. But if we go out there and explain to people that often times, our position is a consumer issue, that our position is fighting for the individual and their access to the court system…that’s what we need to educate the public about.
“That’s ultimately, what we are there for; to create a legislative agenda that protects citizens and individuals and their access to the court system.”
And lobbyist or no, lawyer or no, that’s a pretty noble calling.
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