John D. Hudson, Jr.
Charleston & Columbia, SC Personal Injury Attorney
John Hudson joined McLeod Law Group in March 2020. Before then, he spent the first 19 years of his legal career with two prominent and highly regarded defense firms in Columbia, where he gained extensive and invaluable experience defending and trying cases throughout the state. John has handled a vast range of cases over his career ranging from automobile and trucking accidents, to premises and products liability, to wrongful death, to insurance bad faith, to misrepresentation, fraud and unfair trade practices, to defamation, to nursing home abuse and neglect, to medical and legal malpractice, to will and trust litigation. He also has significant experience handling insurance coverage litigation involving numerous types of policies, both primary and excess. Simply put, John was an insurance defense lawyer prior to joining McLeod Law Group.
In 2018, John teamed up with his father Dwight Hudson, an attorney in Myrtle Beach, to try a wrongful death case on behalf of the estate of a relative’s deceased husband, who was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident. Together they achieved a $3,700,000 verdict for their client, and that trial experience left an indelible impression on John that caused him to reevaluate how he wanted to spend the balance of his legal career. He discovered a deeper sense of purpose in representing the surviving family of the deceased victim, and that experience ultimately motivated him to leave his defense practice and begin representing those injured by the wrongful conduct of others.
In addition to plaintiff work, John continues to devote a portion of his practice to representing licensed professionals in a variety of non-litigation and litigation matters. Such matters include applications for licensure, investigation counseling, and defense of complaints before the various state licensing boards regulated by the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. While the majority of matters he handles involve the Board of Medical Examiners and the Board of Dentistry, he has also appeared before the Board of Engineers and Land Surveyors and Board of Pharmacy on multiple occasions. John also continues to counsel and represent professionals on contractual issues such as wage and payment claims, non-competition and non-solicitation concerns, practice departure matters, peer review hearings and National Practitioner Data Bank reporting requirements.
John is originally from Horry County, South Carolina. He graduated from Woodberry Forest School in 1991 and then attended Davidson College, where he played soccer and was a member of the 1992 team that truly defied all odds and earned its way to the NCAA Division I Final Four. John graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2000 and was admitted to the South Carolina Bar that same year. He was admitted to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina in 2000 and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003. He is a member of the South Carolina Association for Justice, the Richland County Bar Association, and the John Belton O’Neall Inn of Court.
John lives in Columbia with his wife (a quasi-saint who teaches four-year-olds) and two teenage sons. He and his family are active members of Eastminster Presbyterian Church.
John practices primarily in McLeod Law Group’s Columbia office.
