Local Attorney Honored

The South Carolina Bar Foundation and the SC Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission named South Carolina Legal Services’ Kimberly P. Shelton the 2013 Ellen Hines Smith Legal Services Lawyer of the Year. The award was recently presented to Shelton by the Bar Foundation and the Commission at the 2014 Bar Foundation Gala at The Hall at Senate’s End in Columbia.
“It was truly an honor to receive the award that was named after someone who dedicated her career to helping the poor and disadvantaged in her community. It’s also an honor to follow after the other attorneys within legal services who were named before me. I look up to Ellen Hines Smith and the other legal services attorneys as role models and mentors,” says Shelton who is a staff attorney at SC Legal Services and a resident of Hunt Club in West Ashley. She received her Bachelor of Arts in biology from the College of Charleston and her Juris Doctor from the Vermont Law School.
After law school, Shelton moved back to Charleston and joined S.C. Legal Services in 2006, She was named the 2010 Attorney Advocate of the Year by the S.C. Association Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (SCAADVASA) for her work with victims of domestic violence and their families.
In 2012, Shelton worked in cooperation with the Charleston School of Law and the Charleston County Clerk of Court to create a program to train and supervise volunteer law students each semester in assisting victims of domestic violence in filing for Orders of Protection and representing themselves in Family Court. That same year, she was honored as the SC Legal Services Attorney of the Year.
Shelton also works with the Veteran Affairs Homeless Justice Project and VA Hospitals in organizing and conducting legal clinics and providing assistance to low-income veterans.
In her letter of support for Sheton’s nomination, Elmire Raven, executive director of My Sister’s House, Inc. said, “I cannot think of a more deserving attorney than Kimberly. She is compassionate and dedicated to providing legal services to domestic violence victims.”
Meredith Miller, the Veterans Justice Outreach coordinator at the VA Medical Center commented that, “Mrs. Shelton is deserving of this award by making it her priority to extend legal services to those that would otherwise not have access.”
The Ellen Hines Smith Legal Services Lawyer of the Year Award was established in 1989 in memory of Ellen Hines Smith of Spartanburg. The award is presented to recognize a lawyer who has demonstrated a long-term commitment to legal services to the poor in South Carolina.