Joe Earle Berry Jr.

Joe Earle Berry Jr. is senior attorney and shareholder with the law firm of Berry, Quackenbush & Stuart, P.A., in Columbia, S.C., where he has practiced law for nearly 60 years, specializing in real estate law, corporate law and government relations. He also serves as official counsel to both the Crawford Law Firm and to Von Keller Law.

Berry is a former special judge and associate municipal judge and has served on the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline for the South Carolina Supreme Court. He has also served as a registered lobbyist in South Carolina since 1977 and as executive director of the Wine and Spirit Wholesalers Association of South Carolina. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Richland County Bar Association and the South Carolina Bar. Berry also served as a JAG officer in the U.S. Air Force for two years.

He is chairman emeritus of the board of trustees of the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C., having served on this board for over 25 years, from 1970 to 1994. The College of Charleston awarded him the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters in 1994 and a residence hall was named in his honor in 1999. Lander University awarded him the honorary degree Doctor of Humanities in 1989.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1953, an LL.B. degree in 1955 and a Juris Doctor degree in 1970, all from the University of South Carolina.

Berry was named an honorary founder of Coastal Carolina University in 2014.