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Campsen remains a legal figurehead after 50 years
By Rachel Pleasant
Staff Writer
George Campsen began his career as a lawyer 50 years ago making $200 a month and paying $65 a month to rent a house on the Isle of Palms.
A million things have changed since 1955 but not Campsen’s passion.
“In my heart, I’ll always be a trial lawyer,” said Campsen, the only lawyer in Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties this year to be recognized by the South Carolina Bar Association for 50 years of active membership.
Humble beginnings
Inside his home office on the Isle of Palms, Campsen shows visitors a broken candlestick used as a weapon in a case he tried years ago and a picture of himself as a young boxer.
They are tokens of a long and winding journey.
Campsen was born and raised in Charleston. He graduated from The Citadel in 1951 after studying business administration and joined the Air Force. After two years of service, he headed to the University of South Carolina and enrolled in law school.
Campsen, the son of a bookkeeper and an engineer, grew up humbly and craved the success and respect that came with being a lawyer.
He finished his law degree in two years, and one week later married his wife, Myrtle, whom he nicknamed “Snapshot.”
“She’s as pretty as a picture,” he said.
George and Myrtle became the parents of four children, including Chip, the other half of the firm Campsen & Campsen. They also have eight grandchildren.
Born for this
Campsen considered becoming a doctor, but in the end, law was in his blood.
“You’ve got to be born a trial lawyer,” he said. “You have to be born with an ability to be persuasive and an ability to make a point orally. You’ve got to be resourceful and think on your feet and respond quickly to logic. You’ve got to make a jury like you and like your client.”
In the process of making juries like him, Campsen also managed to earn the respect of his contemporaries, including senior U.S. District Court Judge Sol Blatt Jr.
“He’s a great lawyer. He worked hard and prepared his cases well. He crossed every T and dotted every I. If you went to court with George, you’d better be prepared because you knew he would be prepared with the facts and the law,” Blatt said. “You take a lawyer who works hard, is well prepared, knowledgeable and able and gets his cases ready and you’d better be sure you’re ready. That’s about as good a compliment as I know to pay someone.”
Campsen, of course, had to work to earn the regard of people such as Blatt.
That work began in the offices of Thomas Stoney, a lawyer who was mayor of Charleston for eight years during the 1920s and 1930s.
“I learned from him that the law was a study of human behavior and that in some instances fees were not appropriate,” Campsen said.
His first few months on the job, Campsen remembered being bored and begging Stoney for a case to work.
“I’d say, ‘Mr. Stoney, give me something to do,’” he said.
Finally, Stoney brought Campsen a case.
“He brought me a file and told me to write a brief. It was a case dealing with the interpretation of a will. Our firm represented the children against their stepmother,” Campsen said.
The will provided that upon the death of James Miller, his children would inherit his business, Miller’s Termite Control, and his wife, the children’s stepmother, would receive his home, car and any money or property left over after debts were paid.
“But they sold the business two months before the father died so the children weren’t going to get anything,” Campsen said.
Campsen persuaded Stoney to let him make the legal argument in front of a judge in Florence and Stoney relented, though with a degree of uncertainty, Campsen said.
Filled with confidence and optimism, Campsen made his first argument in front of a judge.
“When I was done, Mr. Stoney turned to me and said ‘Son, you were magnificent,’” Campsen said.
“But he told me he thought we were going to lose the case because a local judge was going to side with the local law firm.”
Stoney was right—they did lose the case, and Campsen soon left Stoney’s firm to strike out on his own, setting up an office at 56 Broad St., across the street from Stoney.
Weeks later, Stoney summoned Campsen to his office to discuss the case and the possibility of an appeal.
“I read the case, and I said that we should appeal,” Campsen said.
Stoney agreed, and Campsen argued the case in front of the South Carolina Supreme Court.
The court reversed the lower court’s decision that the proceeds of business sale should go to the widow.
“It felt good,” Campsen said.
The big one
Looking back on his long career, Campsen has a litany of cases to choose from, but when asked to name the one he is most proud of, he answers with one he dealt with in 1981.
The case involved a home built using fire-retardant lumber.
The lumber, Campsen said, did its job in that it did not burn, but when the relative humidity reached 75%, “as it does most of the time here,” Campsen said, the wood leeched hydrochloric acid.
The acid ate away at metallic substances, ruining the home’s electrical system.
“It was like a body infected with cancer,” Campsen said.
The home had to be rebuilt, and Campsen sued the manufacturer and supplier of the lumber in a trial that lasted nine days.
Campsen turned down a $100,000 plea offer and then another for $300,000.
His gamble paid off.
The jury awarded his clients nearly $800,000.
“That was a lot better than $300,000,” Campsen said.
Over the years, Campsen served in the state House of Representatives and pursued his lifelong interest in becoming an entrepreneur.
He bought and sold real estate, including apartment complexes, and started Spirit Line Cruises and Fort Sumter Tours.
“We started on a wing and a prayer,” said Campsen, who runs the businesses with his family, adding that they now employ 60.
Campsen’s son, Chip, said the experience of working side-by-side with his father has taught him much about business and life.
“He has great intuition and a great understanding of human nature,” Chip Campsen said. “His intuition is usually right when it comes to both legal and business matters. I’ve learned the benefit a legal education has in the business environment and the importance of your word and your character. I’ve seen him honor his word almost to his financial detriment, which is an increasingly rare characteristic.”
A lifetime ago
When Campsen started his career, he never thought he would live to see the age 76, let alone still be an active member of the South Carolina Bar Association.
Granted, five decades has slowed him down. The gaps between cases have grown long, and today he spends much of his time arranging care for his wife, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and writing his memoirs. Still, Campsen’s love for the law endures.
“I give a lot of free advice,” he said. “I study law cases, and people ask me legal questions and I help them.”
Behind his desk in his home on the Isle of Palms, Campsen reflected on the last half-century and the ways lawyers have changed.
“The legal profession has suffered because of a lack of quality judges,” Campsen said. “It used to be that when there was a vacancy in the judgeship, the best lawyers in the state would come forward to fill it. Today that doesn’t really take place. Judges don’t make enough money. To become a judge, you have to go through a rigorous political campaign with the General Assembly. All these legislators have an agenda, and these agendas are sometimes in conflict with finding a good judge.”
No matter how many years go by, Campsen said, what makes a good lawyer never changes—something the next generation of lawyers needs to remember.
“A lot of people are dishonest and corrupt,” Campsen said. “They have no conscience or moral compass. They prey on other people. Your first obligation is to justice and to oppose tyranny.”
Rachel Pleasant is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at rpleasant@charlestonbusiness.com.
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