Attorney Profiles

Clair Gilliland Campbell is founder and managing partner of Campbell & Associates. Born on a military base in Aberdeen, MD, she grew up on the Clemson University campus in Clemson, SC. The daughter of an electrical engineer and a medical technologist, Clair was surrounded by college students and professors from an early age. School and learning became a way of life. By the time she was ten, she had read every age-appropriate book in the Pickens County library. She water skied and sailed Lake Hartwell, dove hunted on nearby farms and competed with her horse, Charlie Leo, across the state in hunter/jumper equestrian events at local and regional horse shows.

After graduating two years early from D.W. Daniel High School in Central, SC, Clair majored in English at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. She wrote articles for the Crimson Tide , the student newspaper and was an editor for the Black Warrior Review , a critically acclaimed collection of creative writing works. She earned an athletic letter for the University's Water Ski Team. While there, she tutored Paul 'Bear' Bryant's football freshman in English, so they would be eligible to play and win the Sugar Bowl three years in a row. Her writing was featured in the 1978 Clemson v. USC official football program. She later wrote Twas the Night Before the Orange Bowl , published by Delmar Press in 1987.

Upon graduating from Alabama with honors, Clair was accepted to study writing with James Dickey, the author of Deliverance, in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of South Carolina. She choose instead to accept an invitation to attend Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, AL. As a member of the school's trial team, she won the Judge's Award for the Best Advocate in 1984. She was selected by the school's alumni office to make an infomercial about the law school, leading to employment by Karney & Smith in Charlotte, NC in the fall of 1985. As the youngest graduate of Cumberland, she began her personal injury practice at age 23 as an associate, becoming a partner with Karney, Campbell & Karney in 1991.

Licensed in NC and SC, Clair enjoys participating in both the NC Academy of Trial Lawyers and the SC Trial Lawyers Association. She is a member of the American Trial Lawyers Association, the Mecklenburg County Bar's Medical/Legal Committee and the NC and SC Bar Associations. She has practiced personal injury law for over twenty years, helping car accident victims, families and injured workers throughout the Carolinas. She has been selected by Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in American Law to appear in their publications since 1990. She is a member in good standing of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the National Society of Magna Charta Dames.

A private pilot, Clair enjoys traveling with her husband and two children, water and snow skiing, ballroom dancing, tennis and horseback riding.