Julie is a trial lawyer and shareholder with Duffy & Young where she practices in the areas of personal injury, wrongful death, and business litigation. She is an active member of the South Carolina Bar and the Charleston County Bar where she has focused her leadership work on connecting lawyers with public service opportunities. Additionally, Julie is a member of the board of directors of Special Olympics South Carolina. Previously, Julie served as a law clerk for the Honorable John Cannon Few who was then the Chief Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals.

In 2017, Julie was named the Young Lawyer of the Year by the South Carolina Bar Association.

Julie lives in West Ashley with her husband, Thomas Rode, and her young son.

Annie Elizabeth Andrews is an experienced trial lawyer and partner at The Andrews Law Firm LLC representing plaintiffs in wrongful death, catastrophic injury cases, automobile accidents, and criminal defense.

​Prior to co-founding The Andrews Law Firm LLC, Annie spent several years litigating personal injury cases at a mid-sized Personal Injury firm and gaining substantial trial experience at the Charleston County Public Defender’s office, where she zealously fought for the rights of over 1,000 indigent individuals and tried more than 30 cases to verdict. Annie has fought to protect the rights of all citizens throughout her career.

​Annie is rated “AV-Preeminent®” by Martindale-Hubbell, signifying her peers have ranked her at the highest level of professional excellence for her legal knowledge, communication skills, and ethical standards. Annie has also been recognized by Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and named within the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers” by The National Trial Lawyers.

​In 2021 Annie received the Emerging Leader Award from the South Carolina Women Lawyers Association (SCWLA) and was recognized by Charleston Business Magazine’s 2021 Women in Business for her important contributions to the legal community. Annie also received the “Star of the Quarter” Award from the South Carolina Bar Young Lawyers Division in 2019 and that same year, was named South Carolina’s “Juvenile Public Defender of the Year.”

​While representing incarcerated children in Charleston, Annie went beyond simply defending her client’s charges and challenged unconstitutional conditions of their unsafe, inhumane confinement. Her criminal justice reform efforts resulted in the closure of the fifty-year-old dilapidated Charleston County Juvenile Detention Center, ending decades of unconstitutional confinement of youth. Annie also increased access to books in juvenile jails by spearheading a book drive of 4,000+ young adult books to build or revamp libraries in juvenile jails within Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville –also for the benefit of her young clients.

Lucy is a CPA with over ten years of public accounting experience. She has practiced in South Carolina, California, and Florida with local, regional, and national firms. Lucy is currently a manager at Frank, Rimerman + Co specializing in ultra-high net worth individual taxation and planning.

She is an active member of the Estate Planning Council. Lucy lives in Mt. Pleasant with her pug, Penny, and is an active performer at Theatre 99.

Sue Chang is an attorney at Bleecker Family Law in Charleston, South Carolina. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English. Sue received her law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2008. During law school, she was an active member of the Public Interest Law Society and Vice President of the Pro Bono Board.

After graduation from law school, Sue worked as an attorney with South Carolina Legal Services, focused primarily on family court matters for indigent clients and survivors of domestic violence. In 2013, she began her practice as counsel at Lighthouse Immigration Services, providing Family Court representation to clients with concurrent immigration concerns. The South Carolina Department of Social Services contracted Sue to prosecute child protection agency cases in late 2014, and she litigated cases with the agency until joining Bleecker Family Law. Sue also ran her solo practice Chang Family Law, where she focused on child custody, divorce, and private Guardian ad Litem cases.

Sue is an active member of the Charleston County Bar, the South Carolina Bar, and the South Carolina Women Lawyers Association. Sue has spoken at training events for both attorneys and members of the community. Here national memberships include the National Hispanic Bar Association and the National LGBT Bar Family Law Institute.

In her free time, Sue can be found running local 5K races, racking up Charity Miles for the Alzheimer’s Association, and spending time with her family. She is on the Board of Racers for Pacers, a local organization committed to providing running chairs for individuals with disabilities who cannot run on their own. She is fluent in Spanish and has a passion for community outreach to Charleston.

Emma is a Project Leader for Harvard Kennedy School's Government Performance Lab, where she manages a team and project portfolio that supports state and local governments design and implement solutions to build more just and efficient service systems. Prior to joining Harvard's GPL team, she spent years working in South Carolina government- holding positions at the city, county, and state level.These positions included work in data-driven performance management, municipal budget planning, criminal legal system reform, and public health data analytics used to track state-level Covid-19 health metrics and build the state's Covid-19 vaccine rollout plan.

Emma holds a Master of Public Administration from the College of Charleston with an emphasis in Urban and Regional Planning and BAs in Spanish and Interdisciplinary Studies from Lee University. She also lived and taught in Paris (Université de Versailles), while completing a Research Fellowship focused on challenges faced by host cities implementing national refugee policy, and interning with UNESCO’s Section of Intercultural Dialogue. She now lives in Park Circle with her husband and cat, but returns to Paris as much as she can!

Megan Denton is the Manager of Business Development at American Express, a position she has held for the last 12 years. Megan supports US based and global organizations in business strategy, sales, account management, capital management, and risk mitigation. A Charleston resident for the last 18 years, she enjoys connecting with others in the community and finding ways to assist others in times of need. CLA’s incredible impact to the local community has drawn Megan to support the annual CLA fundraiser, and opened opportunities for stronger support in the years to come.

Jane has over 25 years of Fortune 500 Company management experience in the hospitality industry, encompassing 20 years in human resources, 12 years executive level experience, including four years operations executive experience. Areas of expertise involve regulatory and employment law matters, mergers and acquisitions, collective bargaining, and franchised operations.

Jane serves on the Board of Directors of Camp Boggy Creek SeriousFun Children’s Network, and the Charleston School of Law Foundation.

A graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with a BS in psychology, Jane also holds an MBA from the University of Tampa, and earned a JD degree from the Charleston School of Law. While in law school she completed externships at the ACLU of South Carolina and Charleston Legal Access, and served as a monitor for the Probate Court Adult Guardianship and Assistance Monitoring Program. She is a certified South Carolina Bar Family Court and Circuit Court mediator.

Jane lives in Charleston and volunteers at Meals on Wheels of Charleston and is a tutor with Reading Partners South Carolina.

Tola is a plaintiff's litigation attorney, licensed in both Washington, D.C. and South Carolina. He is currently an associate at Motley Rice where he works in the Public Client group. Formerly, he was a Public Defender in Charleston, South Carolina where he represented the indigent accused. Originally from East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and the son of Nigerian immigrants, Tola moved to Charleston in 2017 with the aim of advocating for those who would otherwise go unheard. Tola, who is also a board member for South Carolina for Criminal Justice Reform and Father to Father, graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Criminal Justice. He attended Elon University School of Law, where he graduated with the Dean’s Award and as a member of the Order of the Barrister’s.

Melissa Fried Spence, a member of Butler Snow’s Labor & Employment practice group, has 13 years of legal experience building proactive strategies that help clients avoid long and protracted legal disputes involving a variety of labor and employment matters. She has negotiated and tried numerous cases to verdict, representing clients in a wide range of industries, and has represented clients before the South Carolina state and district courts, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Department of Labor, and South Carolina Human Affairs Commission.

Spence has been recognized for her exemplary work and commitment to the Charleston community with inclusion in the Charleston Regional Business Journal ‘Forty under 40’ list in 2020. She was listed as One to Watch by Best Lawyers in America® for Labor and Employment Law – Management in the 2021 and 2022 editions. She was also named a South Carolina Rising Stars honoree from 2016 to 2019 and is a graduate of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce Leadership Charleston Class of 2019.

Spence holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from Wofford College and a Juris Doctorate with honors from Charleston School of Law. In her spare time, she serves as general counsel on the Palmetto Society for Human Resource Management board, board member for the Charleston Forum, and is the CLE coordinator for the employment and labor law section for the South Carolina Bar Association. She is also a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, South Carolina Women Lawyers Association, Charleston County Bar Association and South Carolina Federal Bar Association Chapter.

Tope is an attorney at Motley Rice, LLC, where she focuses her practice on assisting people and families whose lives have been affected by catastrophic injuries or death as a result of corporate wrongdoing, occupational hazards, and environmental negligence. She contributes to the firm’s intensive involvement in the National Prescription Opiate Multidistrict Litigation, as well as similar cases filed in state court against manufacturers, distributors, and other entities believed to have played a role in causing the opioid crisis.

Outside of the practice of law, Tope serves as the chair of the women’s caucus for the South Carolina Association for Justice, an organization that serves as a valuable resource to trial lawyers across the state and advocates for those who have been harmed by the misconduct of others seeking justice under the law. Tope is a 2018 graduate of the South Carolina Bar Leadership Academy, a selective program designed to train the next generation of Bar members and community leaders.

Driven by her passion for community involvement, Tope also serves on the Board of Directors of Charleston HALOS, The Green Heart Project, and Charleston Habitat for Humanity. Tope is a graduate of The University of Virginia School of Law, where she worked as a part of the Virginia Innocence Project Student Group, a student legal research group that assists with the investigation and screening of cases involving prisoners convicted of serious crimes where cognizable claims of actual innocence exist.

John is partner with Walker Gressette & Linton, LLC. He is a trial lawyer, who has tried cases to verdict in both state and federal court. He has also handled numerous appeals. His practice encompasses a broad range of areas including representing plaintiffs in personal injury, construction, and other cases; business, commercial, and property litigation; and representing landowners in eminent domain/condemnation cases. John is regularly included in the lawyer ranking publications, such as Best Lawyers® and Super Lawyers®. He is also AV-rated, the highest rating offered by Martindale-Hubbell®.

John was born in Charleston and lives in the Old Village in Mt. Pleasant with his wife Julia, their sons Jack and Fritz, and their dog Buddy.

Ali has spent more than a decade working in various nonprofit roles including Director of Policy and Communications at the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, Director of College of Charleston's Community Assistance Program, Program Officer at Coastal Community Foundation, and Awareness and Advocacy Manager at the Center for Women. During this time, she has developed expertise in nonprofit advocacy, social justice policy, strategic planning, institutional advancement, organizational equity and inclusion, and program evaluation. 

Originally from West Columbia, SC, Ali earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Presbyterian College and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the College of Charleston, where she focused on nonprofit management and social justice. In her life outside of work, Ali enjoys cooking, listening to records, and spending time with her family (especially Levon and Hugo, the world's two most perfect dogs).