Shutt certified as South Carolina employment and labor law specialist
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Nekki Shutt has earned certification from the South Carolina Supreme Court as a specialist in employment and labor law.
Certification as a specialist means an attorney has at least five years’ “substantial involvement and special competency” in the area and has devoted at least 40 percent of his or her practice to employment and labor law.
Additionally, applicants must complete at least 60 hours continuing legal education classes in employment law and submit at least two references from a federal judge, hearing officer, arbitrator or mediator before whom they’ve appeared.
Finally, attorneys must pass a written examination.
Shutt has more than 20 years’ experience in employment and human resources. Before she became an attorney, she worked in the personnel department of a publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. After earning her law degree from the University of South Carolina, Shutt built on her human resources experience and developed a practice with an emphasis on employee benefits and employment law.
In 2010, Shutt served as Chair of the South Carolina Bar’s 433-partner Labor and Employment Law Section. From 2000 to 2005 she served as an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, teaching a three-credit-hour course emphasizing social justice issues involving race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, and the poor.
Shutt’s work was honored by her peers when she was included in The Best Lawyers in America 2010 in the field of labor and employment law. Closer to home, the University of South Carolina awarded her the James Petigru Compleat Lawyer Award, Silver Medallion in 2005. She wrote the employee benefits law chapter for the two most recent editions of “Labor and Employment Law for South Carolina Lawyers.”