Mr. William O. Sweeny III, Attorney

Bill has been a defense trial attorney for twenty-seven years. He is a former senior partner at a large, national firm where he served on the firm's management committee and, among other things, was responsible for the training and development of most of its current trial attorneys. He has actively participated in hundreds of trials involving such diverse fields as insurance coverage, product liability, trucking and transportation torts, personal injury, premises liability, contract disputes, medical malpractice, employment law, and patent infringement.

Bill has been on the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association and the American Law Firm Association (ALFA). He was a charter member of the Transportation and Trucking Practice Group and on the steering committee of the Product Liability Practice Group for ALFA. He is also a member of the Transportation Industry Defense Association (TIDA), the Defense Research Institute (DRI), the Transportation Lawyers Association, the Association of Transportation Practitioners, and the American Arbitration Association. He has been a regular speaker at various bar association and national legal education seminars.

He is a member of the Richland County and South Carolina Bar Associations, the Transportation Lawyers' Association, The American Trucking Association, and the American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association (AIPLA). He was educated at the Hotchkiss School, Colgate University (B.A.), and the University of South Carolina School of Law (Juris Doctor). He also served as a trial counsel in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General Corps. He is qualified to practice in all state and federal courts as well as the United States Supreme Court.

Bill is married to the former Nica Blankenship of Roanoke, Virginia, and they have two children. His favorite leisure activity is golf. He is an elder and Sunday School teacher at First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, and is Chairman of the Board of International Friendship Ministries, and outreach to international students in American colleges.