Boroughs
Growing up in a double wide trailer in the small town of Williston, S.C., Adair Ford Boroughs could be frequently seen with her nose in a book or proudly toting her clarinet as she paraded in her small-school marching band. She could have never imagined all that her future would hold.
On July 26, 2022, Boroughs was sworn in as U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina after being nominated by President Joe Biden on June 3, 2022.
“It is the most exciting thing for me to be back at the Department [of Justice],” Boroughs said. “It is where I started my legal career, it’s where I learned the practice of law, and where I learned what it meant to do justice in the name of the United States.”
Justice to Boroughs means increasing diversity and inclusion efforts. Based on her experiences growing up in a low-income family, Boroughs has experienced the effect of not having academic and professional opportunities available to her firsthand. Now as U.S. Attorney Boroughs has the ability to effect change that will benefit those born into similar situations.
“We need diversity in leadership because of those blind spots,” Boroughs said. “Everybody has them – I have them – and having diversity in all kinds of ways, not just the traditional ways you think of, but in particular substantive backgrounds for instance. It gives you different perspectives to bring to the table.”
After high school, Boroughs attended college at Furman University, graduating in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, with the plan of teaching and inspiring young people as a high school math teacher. It wasn’t until experiencing the struggles that teachers face and desiring to reform the education system that Borough became interested in Law.
“When I was a young teacher, I had lots of thoughts and opinions about the way our system works and about how teachers didn’t have the resources and the things they needed to really help their children succeed in the classroom,” Boroughs said. “So, I spent some time lobbying my school board members, I spent some time lobbying members of the state legislature, and I felt that the people in those positions at that time were extremely dismissive of me and dismissive of teachers in the classroom in general and I found that very frustrating.”
After searching for ways to make an impact on her state and country, Boroughs decided she needed to get a law degree.
“People tend to follow their parents and community and who they’re exposed to, and I didn’t know a lawyer until after I was in college,” Boroughs said. “It was one of the reasons being a lawyer never occurred to me; they were just this foreign thing.”
Boroughs received her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 2007 and began her career at the Department of Justice as a part of the Attorney General’s Honors Program shortly after.
From 2013 to 2017 Boroughs clerked for Judge Richard Gergel, she was involved in several high-profile cases, including United States v. Dylan Roof. After that, she served as the executive director of Charleston Legal Access, a non-profit organization aimed at addressing and solving the justice gap in South Carolina until 2019. Between running Charleston Legal Access and beginning her time as a U.S. Attorney, Boroughs was a partner at Boroughs Bryant LLC.
Boroughs began her political career in 2020, when she ran for office to represent South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District. She lost to Republican Joe Wilson by 13 percentage points.
Being a woman toiling in the world of law and politics, it hasn’t always been easy for Boroughs.
“Women tend to second guess themselves a lot more [than men],” Boroughs said. “I am only the second woman to hold this role, in the office that’s not an issue at all, but it is in the area of law enforcement. There are also still big gender gaps in leadership and law enforcement that they are working toward. But it’s something where I am finding myself being the only woman in a room a lot more frequently than I did in other sectors or in other work.”
Because of Boroughs’ background, she has a specific desire to increase diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in her new role.
“We need diversity in leadership because of those blind spots,” Boroughs said. “Everybody has them – I have them – and having diversity in all kinds of ways, not just the traditional ways you think of, but in particular substantive backgrounds for instance. It gives you different perspectives to bring to the table.”
One of the ways that Boroughs has already taken action, is by making the Summer Law Clerk Program at the U.S. Attorney’s Office paid.
“We’ve always had unpaid summer law school students, and that’s a big problem for diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Boroughs said. “Because frankly, I was the kid that had bills to pay and couldn’t take an unpaid internship, and it’s not fair. And we are the Department of Justice, we should be seeking justice and all that we do internally as well as externally.”
For summer 2023 South Carolina will be one of only two U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the entire country that will be doing paid internships for law students.
This is just one way that Boroughs has already made an impact as a U.S. Attorney, and she has many more goals in mind to implement during her time in this role.
“Starting my career [at the department of justice] influenced my whole view of the profession, and what we should do as lawyers, and our job and obligation to seek justice and what we do,” Boroughs said. “I am very happy to be back at the Department of Justice. It’s kind of a dream to be back here in leadership, frankly. And so, I’m really, really excited about it and the opportunity to be back at Justice and serving my home state is like the combination dream job for me.”
As for what’s next for Boroughs, she isn’t sure. Through whatever opportunity comes next, Boroughs hopes to continue to implement change and be a voice for marginalized communities.
“I have never planned my career, or had a five or ten-year plan,” Boroughs said. “My philosophy has always been, ‘I’m gonna do the job I’m doing right now extremely well, I’m gonna knock it out of the park, I’m gonna give it my all, and if I do that, opportunities will be there for the next thing.’ I have really chosen the jobs I have at the times I have because they are addressing problems in society that I want to fix. I want to get in and help make things better.”
For more from Adair Boroughs, see Q&A below:
Q: You helped found Charleston Legal Access in 2016. What impact did that experience have on you personally, and professionally?
A: I learned how to be the head of an organization, which is something that is serving me really well now. I learned the fundamentals of an organization because you’re building it from the ground up. I really learned about me personally that part of my advantage and gift for the world is that I’m willing to take risks to solve some of our problems. Sometimes the reason we aren’t solving these problems is because people are scared to take the risk.
Q: What lessons did you take away while clerking for Judge Gergel during the Dylan Roof case?
A: I one of the really important lessons I learned is the importance that the justice system plays for the community, both in an ability to have closure and to heal from an event, the justice system is just a crucial player in that. I also learned when these really horrific events happen, humans have an unbelievable ability to really come together and start facing it. We saw it in our law enforcement, we saw it in the church in – in Mother Emanuel, we saw it and the U.S. Attorney’s office we saw it in the court system. Everyone stepped up in that moment, and in a way that makes me proud to be a part of our society and in our justice system. But our justice system is just so crucial in these instances, to really provide closure and healing or be a part of the process of closure and healing for a community.
Q: You have been recognized in the past for your mentorship of new attorneys. Who are a few of your greatest mentors, and what are the most important lesson you have learned?
A: Mentors are crucial, and I have had a number of them. I have had them in in each job, and I think that it’s really important for young people to find their mentors in different places. My chief at the Department of Justice, his name is Rick Ward, I say he will always be my chief. And now that I’m U.S. attorney he is still my chief in ways. He was an incredible mentor for me, not only teaching me the practice of law while I was at that department, but he also put time into me and training me to be a leader. He saw that potential and he and made sure I had formal and informal training in it.
Judge Richard Gergel, who I spent over three and a half years with taught me so much about doing justice and about the practice of law in South Carolina, and about dreaming big in my career. Those two are probably the two, but I have I have lots of them. So, I hate to narrow it too much. But yeah, both of them have been incredibly influential in my life.
Q: You have run for office a couple of times. Any plans to get back into politics once your time as U.S. Attorney is over?
A: Not presently, no. I have never planned my career, or had a five or ten-year plan. My philosophy has always been I’m gonna do the job I’m doing right now extremely well, I’m gonna knock it out of the park and I’m gonna give it my all. And if I do that, opportunities will be there for the next thing. And I have really chosen the jobs I have chosen at the times I have because they are addressing problems in society that I want to fix. I want to get in and help make things better. And so, there are a lot of things I could do that I would be happy doing that I have no idea what that is.
Q: Outside of work how do you enjoy spending your time?
A: I have two daughters, they’re 10 and 7, and I love spending time with them. We do a lot of puzzles, I love puzzles. I did them with my grandmother until she passed, and my daughters and I do that. My husband and I have always played a lot of video games. I just own up to it. We do it. And so that’s fun. But really, I love my work, so I spend a lot of time doing work and the time that I don’t spend here I really spend with my family.
Q: What is your favorite book?
A: Just for fun, my favorite series is probably the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I love that it doesn’t fit into a genre, like it’s part historical fiction part romance, a little bit their fantasy aspects, but she’s an incredible writer and it’s this genre that kind of doesn’t fit in into any category that I also love.
Q: What movie or TV show best depicts what it is like to work in law?
A: I don’t think they have one that does.
Q: What is your go-to spot for a power lunch?
A: Crave Market is one of my favorite places to go to lunch. They have this green goddess salad that is amazing.
The post COMING FULL CIRCLE: From humble beginnings, Adair Ford Boroughs has risen to occupy the top attorney spot in South Carolina 
first appeared on South Carolina Lawyers Weekly.