Alex Murdaugh was born to be a lawyer.
For almost a century, members of the Murdaugh family served as solicitors (another name for local prosecutors) in five counties in South Carolina’s Lowcountry before establishing one of the most renowned personal injury law firms in the area. Soon after graduating from the University of South Carolina’s law school in 1994, Murdaugh assumed his role in the legal family dynasty, joining Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick (PMPED) alongside his brother and father.
Eventually, Murdaugh began to volunteer part-time in the 14th Circuit solicitor’s office and even served as the president of the state trial lawyers’ association.
But his former law firm colleagues admitted during Murdaugh’s murder trial this week that the 54-year-old might not have been as legally gifted as his family lineage would suggest. In fact, two of them described Murdaugh as a loud and “frenetic” lawyer who kept different hours than everyone else—and was able to keep a “good clientele” roster because he had the “gift of the gab.”
“He was successful not from his work ethic, but his ability to establish relationships and to manipulate people into settlements and clients into liking him,” Jeanne Seckinger, the firm’s chief financial officer, testified on Tuesday. “The art of bullshit, basically.”
Ronnie Crosby, another former law partner who has known Murdaugh for over two decades, simply told the jury that Murdaugh “wasn’t a real student of the law.”
The...
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