How about that incredible performance from the University of South Carolina’s Lady Gamecocks Basketball team! It is a privilege to have such a talented and hardworking women’s basketball team, right here in our back yard. Five to ten years ago I rarely watched women’s basketball, but now I look forward to cheering them on with every single game. I think the growth and popularity of women’s basketball has been astronomical in recent years and I find myself being interested in other well-known women’s teams as well. I proudly know the names of all the players on the key teams and I am not alone. This past weekend’s Women’s National Championship featured the women’s game having more TV viewers than the Men’s game! I certainly give the rise in the interest in women’s basketball to superstars like Caitlin Clark, but I think most of the heightened interest comes from our Gamecocks Head Coach, Dawn Staley and her magnificent 2023-2024 team. I was so excited to see the Gamecocks win the National title and regret that I will be unable to celebrate with the team this coming Sunday when my beloved Columbia has a parade down Main Street in their honor.

Next year looks exceedingly bright with the incoming players, including this past year’s freshman, Tessa Johnson and MiLaysia Fulwiley, and I am ready for the upcoming season to start right now! Go Gamecocks!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

Seventeen years ago, I was blessed when Lisa Cotten came to work at the Mike Kelly Law Group. She is the only human being that ever worked for me (including myself) that earned the high honor of being a Phi Beta Kappa college graduate. She graduated from “The” University of South Carolina, which happens to be my favorite college in the world! Lisa is an outstanding attorney, wife, and mother. She is also an avid sports fan in her own right, as well as following all sports activities involving her very athletic son, college student Myles. Lisa has received yet another well-deserved honor that deserves recognition. Lisa was recently named Assistant United States Attorney, for the District of South Carolina, and she will be excellent in this position. As with all the other lawyers who have come through my doors during the last four decades, she is family, and I am immensely proud of all her continued accomplishments!

The US Attorney’s Office is incredibly lucky to have you, Lisa! Congratulations and good luck in your new endeavor!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

I am so proud that we have built a diverse group of KellyGram followers which includes people of different religious faiths or perhaps those no faith, but for the Christian followers, which includes myself and most of the MKLG staff, this is a big week for us. For starters, it is the culmination of Lent and the events leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection three days later. Of course, there are many other holy days to celebrate throughout the year, but this is one of the most important weeks of our faith. In my Episcopal denomination we observed Maundy Thursday (also called Holy Thursday) last evening that included communion and feet washing, which happened to the disciples the night before Jesus’s crucifixion. We are observing the high holy day of Good Friday today and then on Saturday night we will have an Easter Vigil (which is one of my favorite services on the church calendar). Then on Sunday we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter. It is such a special time of year, and I am so grateful for all my many blessings.

I plan to be at all four services and truly cherish the opportunity to belong to my beloved St. Martin’s-in-the Fields Episcopal Church and worship the Lord.

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

Well, it looks as though Spring has finally sprung, both literally and figuratively. While the pollen seems to be raining down relentlessly, it is so wonderful that Spring has arrived here in Columbia, South Carolina. One of the best aspects of this time of year is the never-ending number of events to choose from, in addition to a very busy work schedule of course. As you all know by now, I do enjoy the theater and next week in Columbia we have the 2024 Tasting Notes, which is a popular wine and food celebration to benefit the South Carolina Philharmonic. There’s also a play at Trustus Theatre and a Concert at the Township, just to name a few. There are numerous other events happening across the state that I look forward to attending as well. I’ll just have to make sure I get lots of beauty sleep to make it through the Spring Season! Seriously though, I am very excited to see South Carolina grow and prosper throughout the Spring, to see the improvements in our cultural lives, along with the beauty of living in this wonderful place during the Springtime. Please take a moment to smell the roses but to also take a look at your upcoming local calendar to see what events may be taking place in your area this Spring.

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

The Mike Kelly Law Group has had an office in Myrtle Beach since we established the firm almost 20 years ago. Unfortunately, our business neighborhood had declined over the years, but we were always hopeful that it would come back to be better than ever. Thanks to the leadership of the City of Myrtle Beach, the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and our local businesses in the area, the Arts & Innovation District is now on fire!

Just three years ago the Grand Strand Brewing Company became an anchor business based across from the old Pavilion property and directly opposite our building on Broadway Street. Since then, new businesses have steadily opened in the area including a new bakery, Le Manna Bread, owned and operated by a Venezuelan family, HTC Aspire HUB, a Health Club, and a soon to be Wine Bar Tasting Room, along with the Dolly Llama Waffle Master ice cream and dessert shop. This is all within just one block from the Mike Kelly Law Group in Myrtle Beach. Further down Broadway other new businesses have popped up including a new restaurant out of the Charleston area, Swig & Swine. I have not tried it yet, but it is on my list for next week’s trip. In the future, preliminary plans have been drawn up for Coastal Carolina University and the City of Myrtle Beach to collaborate on building a Performing Arts Center as well as plans to reconfigure the streets in the new Arts & Innovation District. It will be much like Downtown Columbia with real city blocks, sidewalks, streetscaping, and other innovative and beautification projects.

To say we are excited at the Mike Kelly Law Group is an understatement!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

As many of you know South Carolina loves its football and particularly at the college level, but we also love our basketball too. The Clemson men are having a good season and will make the playoffs while the lady Gamecocks are acting like lady Gamecocks! They were undefeated in the regular season and play next week in the SEC Tournament. The Gamecock men, under Coach Lamont Paris, have defied expectations and quite simply have done a remarkable job. Coach Paris and his staff have pulled together people who have never played with each other before and created such a talented basketball team. Between the Gamecock men’s and women’s teams, I have been glued to the television many times throughout this season and I look forward to seeing how deep a run they make during March Madness. What would we do without our sports? Go Gamecocks!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

Our law clerk Christy Leigh Salinari is from Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. She is a distinguished alumna of Coastal Carolina University where she studied History and Political Science and was a member of the Dance Team. She is a soon to be graduate of the University of South Carolina, Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Her family and friends affectionately call her CL. She will be officially joining the Mike Kelly Law Group as an attorney based in Columbia once she passes the July 2024 Bar Exam.

Christy Leigh has clerked for us for almost two years now, both in our Myrtle Beach and Columbia offices. She has developed a passion for serving others in our key practice areas of personal injury, workers comp and disability. She has prepared herself to begin her career at MKLG by taking courses in civil litigation, trial advocacy, mediation, insurance, and workers compensation’, just to name a few.

When she is not working for us, going to school, doing homework, or studying, she enjoys traveling abroad, riding her bike with her golden retriever named Rainy, and spending time sailing with her dad in her hometown of Murrells Inlet.

We are extremely excited about Christy Leigh’s future career with the Mike Kelly Law Group and her contributions to our firm and its client base.

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

When I think of African American leaders who have benefited this State and Nation in an unparalleled way, my mind goes to the ministry. First and foremost, we think of the late and great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with his role in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Focusing on other African American ministers within the Protestant Episcopal denomination of my birth, our current presiding Bishop is Michael Curry, who made international news when he gave the homily at the most recent Royal wedding. The first African American ordained minister in the United States was Absalom Jones from Philadelphia, and then the first African American priest in South Carolina was Reverend Thaddeus Saltus, who was an assistant priest at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Charleston and ordained to the priesthood in 1881.

In more recent times, I think of my friend and pastor, Reverend Dr. Charles Jackson of Brookland Baptist Church, and Pastor Senator Darrell Jackson of the dynamic Bible Way Church of Atlas Road in East Columbia. There are also numerous other clergymen in our midst including Bishop David Tompkins of Living Word of Deliverance Temple Worship Center, the Reverend Blakely Scott of First Nazareth Baptist Church, the late Reverend Roscoe Wilson, Sr. (grandfather of Gamecock All-American and NBA star A’Ja Wison) who pastored Saint John Baptist Church for 50 years. We also want to highlight our own Workers’ Compensation Paralegal, Kimberly Cropper’s uncle, Pastor Dr. Kelvin Felder of River of Life in Winnsboro and of New Covenant Assembly in Rock Hill. These pastors form the bedrock of faith in our South Carolina communities.

There are leaders and then there are our leaders, and the African American clergy are our true leaders!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched live TV program ever in the history of television! There were Chiefs fans and 49ers fans (I gave the 49ers my primary allegiance only because they have a bunch of outstanding Gamecocks on the team including one of the best, Deebo Samuel), but I am the first to acknowledge that the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes are pretty hard to beat! I did not attend a Super Bowl party, although I certainly have in the past, but I marvel on social media at how hyped-up people get about the Super Bowl and its halftime entertainment. I am by no means an entertainer and yield to my oldest son Patrick who is the performer in the family, but I thought the halftime show was great and the game itself was fantastic. The fact that the Super Bowl was watched around the globe including Australia, the far East, Europe, and other countries is a testimony to the National Football League’s success and all its incredible marketing efforts.

I look forward to enjoying more Super Bowls in my lifetime.

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!

I know I am a voice in the wilderness, but it is still mindboggling to me the number of drivers in the City of Columbia that run red lights almost constantly. Take any red light, especially on Huger, Gervais and Assembly Streets and people come flying through them like they are still green! In the last seven days, I have witnessed several almost fatal collisions of people blowing through red lights to save a few seconds. Those few seconds could cost someone their lives and I urge the City of Columbia Police Department and City leaders to address this issue. It is a public safety issue and could cause serious fatalities. I hope that people will soon learn that saving a small amount of time is not worth the potentially catastrophic loss of injuring others or yourself. I would like to encourage the readers of this KellyGram to always be cautious and vigilant when driving. Even if you find yourself approaching a traffic light and the light is solid green, be aware and look both ways to make sure the intersection is safe to cross. Here, at the Mike Kelly Law Group we want to encourage and facilitate safer habits to help people avoid accidents.

Please slow down and observe traffic signals of all types. That is my diatribe!

We’re here for the people of South Carolina!