By Teri Saylor
There’s little more exciting in a paralegal’s professional life than hearing her or his name called out during an awards ceremony, the hallmark of involvement in professional associations. In 2024, the Legal Staff Professionals of South Carolina, the South Carolina Upstate Paralegal Association and the Paralegal Division of the North Carolina Bar Association welcomed their newest outstanding paralegals.
While these are individual awards, they represent a profession of unsung heroes who keep cases on track and the work flowing every day.
Stephanie Jones,
Award of Excellence,
Legal Support Professionals of South Carolina
Columbia paralegal Stephanie Jones had already received the Award of Excellence from the Legal Support Professionals of South Carolina’s Midlands Chapter, yet she could not have been more surprised when she received the statewide award during LSPSC’s annual meeting April 20.
“When they called my name, I was floored,” Jones said. “I didn’t even have an acceptance speech prepared.”
Jones, who is a criminal defense paralegal at Touma Law Firm, is president of the Midlands Chapter. She had never thought about becoming a paralegal before stepping foot into an employment office in 2004 looking for a job.
“I had just had my first daughter, and one of the available positions was as a receptionist at a criminal defense firm,” she recalls.
She wanted that job, but it paid less than the other positions she was offered, so she made a leap of faith and jumped in, never realizing she was accepting more than a modest entry-level job. She was embarking on a career that she would come to love.
“I just fell in love with everything, and I found that I had a knack for it,” she said.
Before long, she was all in.
She enrolled in the paralegal studies program at Midlands Technical College and earned her associate degree, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. But it wasn’t enough. She went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice from South University while working full time and rearing children. Today, she is certified at the state and national levels.
In her role with Touma Law, Jones does a little bit of everything, from answering phones to keeping the office running. As the sole administrative staffer, she faces new management tasks she’s never encountered before. She hopes the job will lead to bigger and better things.
From helping to defend individuals charged with crimes ranging from drunken driving to murder, Jones is there for her clients, and realizes that for some, her work comes with a stigma attached. She looks past their charges and see her clients as human beings.
“We aspire to see our clients for who they are and look beyond their background or the situations that brought them to this place,” she says. “The hard parts come when they are upset or scared, and while not every client is easy, I don’t mind walking them through their cases step-by-step, and sometimes, I do that over and over.”
Sometimes she feels she is on the job 24/7, but she doesn’t mind.
“I love that big word ‘empathy,’ and I feel I am genuine and authentic in my dealings with clients, whether I’m delivering good news or bad news, and I think people really appreciate that,” Jones said.
Jones embraced leadership in her role on the boards of the Legal Staff Professionals of the Midlands, and when she’s not working for her law firm, she’s putting in hours for the association.
With 40 members and holding, the Midlands Chapter combines camaraderie with professional development.
“I get the continuing education and the networking just by being a member, but serving on the board is so encouraging,” she says. “It has shown me who I am, boosted my confidence, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Lorena Anderson,
Paralegal of the Year,
South Carolina Upstate Paralegal Association
Starting as a courier for McAngus Goudelock and Courie in 2019, Lorena Anderson recalls that role lasting about two hours. She left the office on her first delivery assignment and came back to fill a new vacancy as a legal assistant.
Five months later, she was promoted to her current role as an insurance defense paralegal at the firm, and in October, the South Carolina Upstate Paralegal Association named her its Paralegal of the Year Award for 2024.
She credits her near-meteoric rise through the paralegal ranks to lady luck.
“When I applied for the courier position, I honestly didn’t think they were going to hire me,” she says. “I was brand new to the legal field, and I had no idea where to start. I just wanted to get my foot in the door.”
Born and reared in Clemson, Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Thomas Edison University and spent the first 12 years of her career in the restaurant business.
She moved to Greenville with her husband for a change of scenery and new opportunities, enrolling in the paralegal program at Greenville Technical College. She became certified through both NALA | The Paralegal Association and the South Carolina Bar.
“I had never thought about entering the legal profession, but I gave it a shot and thoroughly enjoyed it,” she says. “After my first semester, I knew it was the career for me.”
With a degree in psychology and the customer service skills she acquired working in restaurants, Anderson has an edge when it comes to dealing with clients. She relies on her humanity to make connections even over the phone and strives to understand when people lash out over seemingly small incidents.
“Your first instinct may be to meet their anger with your anger; but most of the time, it’s not coming from an angry place,” she says. “It may be coming from a whole mess of problems.”
Anderson’s strong work ethic is a superpower that helps her get through even the toughest day. She inherited it from her parents, who demonstrated the value of hard work all their lives.
“They taught me that no matter what you do, if you’re getting paid for it, you do the best that you can,” she says. “And even when I was making $2 an hour at a restaurant, I still took it seriously and did the best I could.”
Anderson says she wouldn’t be where she is without her mentor, Dorothy Huskey, who led her to SCUPA, where she is first vice president in charge of programs and co-chair of the association’s pro bono committee. Getting involved has helped her open up to strangers and enhance her networking skills.
“I’m getting out there, meeting other paralegals, learning about other areas of the law, and receiving positive feedback from friends, colleagues, and even lawyers,” she says.
For someone who walked into a law firm one morning as a courier and walked out that evening as a legal assistant, Anderson doesn’t take her good fortune lightly and uses the experience as a reason to be unafraid of exploring new things.
“I just tell myself, ‘I may not know what I’m doing, but I’ll give it a try,’” she says. “And that’s kind of my motto now.”
Peggy Pardue,
Distinguished Paralegal Award,
N.C. Bar Association Paralegal Division
As a newly divorced young mother, Peggy Pardue was on the hunt for an enjoyable career that would help her support herself and her young son. She landed a job with the State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners and later entered the energy sector.
Then she was laid off.
“At first, I was in panic mode, but my sister worked at a family law firm that was looking for an administrative assistant to fill in part time for a paralegal who was going on maternity leave,” she says.
She landed the job at The Law Office of Meredith J. McGill in 2003 and excelled in the role. The firm became McGill and Hampson in 2007, and when McGill retired, Kristen Hampson launched Hampson Family Law in 2017. During the firm’s evolution, Pardue has been a steady presence for 21 years.
In June, she was presented the Distinguished Paralegal Award by the North Carolina Bar Association’s Paralegal Division at the association’s annual convention.
Whether it was luck or divine intervention, Pardue does not know, but she developed a passion for family law.
“I love helping people who are going through family upheaval, and I feel I can relate to them,” she says. “My situation wasn’t terrible, but when I was in it, I thought that going through a divorce was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.”
She draws from her own experience when she deals with people.
“They come into the office like a deer in the headlights, and they don’t know what to do or what’s going on,” she says. “When they learn I understand what they’re going through because I’ve been through it, too, they get comfortable with me.”
When the North Carolina State Bar launched its paralegal certification program, Pardue was grandfathered in, thanks to her vast experience, and even after two decades, the work never gets old.
She loves uncovering hidden details in her clients’ cases.
“Sometimes a client comes in with no clue about their financials because their spouse took care of everything,” Pardue says. “They may not even know they have an account at a local credit union or bank until I find out about it and tell them.
Perdue became involved with the Paralegal Division as a member, but wanting to get more involved, she joined the Paralegal Council, worked her way onto the executive committee and served as treasurer for the past two years.
One of her favorite activities is volunteering at the Elon College School of Law with other paralegals where they perform question-and-answer sessions with students who are eager to learn what it’s like to work in a real-world law firm.
“I tell them that the first thing they need to do is make friends with the paralegals,” Pardue says, laughing. “Don’t go in there thinking you know more than they do, because I have news for you, they’ve been there a while, and they are going to be the ones showing you the way.”