Julian Nexsen: 1924-2015

Julian J. Nexsen, who helped guide Nexsen Pruet from a four-attorney office to one of the region’s leading business law firms, died today in Columbia, S.C., after a long illness. He was 91.

A widely respected and admired attorney, Mr. Nexsen was known as much for his integrity as he was for his legal skills. While conceding that the profession had changed over time, he remained unwavering in his belief that lawyers should always be guided by character and personal values. “We want to be completely honest, straightforward in every way in all that we do,” he once said.

“Mr. Nexsen was a model of dignity,” said John Sowards, the firm’s Board Chairman. “His passion for professionalism and his commitment to principle shaped the lives of attorneys both inside and outside this firm. He was a gentleman of great achievement, and his contributions to the firm, the community, and the practice of law will be fondly remembered and sorely missed. We are proud to carry his name.”

Julian J. Nexsen was born outside of Kingstree, S.C., the youngest of six children. The son of a successful businessman, he attended public schools before enrolling in The Citadel “because we were getting threats to be in World War II, and I thought I needed to learn to be a soldier.”

Called up during his sophomore year in college, he underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, where he was promoted from private to corporal and then to sergeant. After a 10-day stint in Officer Candidate School, he was sent to France as a second lieutenant and infantry platoon leader. While there, he earned the Combat Infantry Badge and the Bronze Star.

In 1945, Paul Cooper and Frank Gary founded the firm that would later become Nexsen Pruet, and Mr. Nexsen was one of its first four attorneys after being the first honor graduate of his class at the University of South Carolina School of Law. But shortly after entering the practice, he was again called into military service in 1951, not as an infantryman but as a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General Corps in Korea.

Returning to South Carolina, Mr. Nexsen refocused on a career that would span six decades. He became managing partner of Cooper and Gary, which in the 1960s was renamed Cooper Gary Nexsen and Pruet and, later, Nexsen Pruet Jacobs and Pollard.

Over the years that followed, Mr. Nexsen set a standard for skill and service.

He earned the USC law school’s prestigious Compleat Lawyer Platinum Award, which recognizes outstanding professional and civic achievement, and the DuRant Distinguished Public Service Award from the South Carolina Bar Foundation. Additionally, he was listed inBest Lawyers in America for trust and estate law.

Mr. Nexsen’s impact on the legal profession has been significant as well. He was a past president of the Richland County Bar Association and the state Bar Foundation, and served as a member of the Board of Governors of the S.C. Bar, the Legislative Committee for the Revision of the Corporation Code, and the Bar’s House of Delegates.

He was also a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American Bar Foundation; a member of the American Law Institute, the South Carolina Law Institute, and the USC Law School Partnership Board; and a permanent member of the Judicial Conference of the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

Fittingly, the South Carolina Bar Foundation in 2006 passed a resolution recognizing Mr. Nexsen for a lifetime pledge of support on behalf of its efforts to promote justice and enhance the legal profession.

Although Mr. Nexsen spent considerable time and effort building his law firm, he never lost sight of the need to contribute to and serve his community. “From the time I started practicing law, I thought the one thing I ought to do is to be able to help other people,” he said. That philosophy translated to a deep personal involvement in civic and charitable concerns.

Mr. Nexsen was a former chairman of the Board of Trustees of Providence Hospital, a former trustee of the Providence Foundation, and a former trustee of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine Health System. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine Ministries Development Corporation Additionally, he was Clerk of Session and an elder of Eastminster Presbyterian Church; a trustee of Congaree Presbytery; and a member of the Trinity Presbytery Council.

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