By Mike Fitts
mfitts@scbiznews.com
Published Sept. 21, 2009

Leighton Lord III, managing partner of one of the state’s largest law firms, will run for state attorney general.

Lord, who heads Columbia’s Nexsen Pruet firm, said Monday that he filed as a candidate last week with the State Ethics Commission. A formal launch of the campaign for the Republican nomination will come in October.

Lord said he believes that South Carolina needs better leadership than it has received in recent years. “I’ve been very disappointed in the leadership coming out of Columbia,” he said, adding that the standard for public conduct should be higher than just not provoking embarrassment.

Lord said he sees the attorney general post as requiring executive leadership experience and the ability to manage a large group of attorneys practicing in a variety of areas, whether that’s securities regulation or environmental law. Lord said that matches well with the skills he has gained moving up through the ranks of the “strict meritocracy” of Nexsen Pruet, the state’s No. 2 firm in number of practicing attorneys.

The attorney general needs to be part of the team that tries to get South Carolina’s economy moving again, Lord said. A state that is safer is also a better place to do business, Lord said.

Lord said it should be natural that someone heading such a prominent firm would move into public service. People who have succeeded in the private sector should be the ones stepping forward to run, he said.

Before his campaign formally launches, Lord will meet with the Nexsen Pruet board to set up a transition plan for his leaving the post of managing partner.

This will be his first bid for elective office for Lord, 46. Before coming to Nexsen Pruet, he served as staff counsel to a U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations.

Already declared for the Republican race is Alan Wilson, a former assistant attorney general and son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson.