Ask J. Taylor Bell what he most enjoys about his criminal defense law practice and his response is unequivocal: “Fighting the power.” “Criminal defense attorneys are the shield that protects the individual from the almighty government machine,” he says. “It doesn’t care about feelings or individual circumstances. It’s a machine, and it wants to roll. If you get caught in it, you just get run over unless you have somebody who’s going to stand up for you.” A North Carolina native who grew up near Charlotte, Bell received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 2007. After working in the financial services industry for a year, Bell decided to go to law school after realizing he wanted a direct hand in helping people. Bell has focused on representing criminal defendants ever since his student days at the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he received his Juris Doctor degree in 2011. During law school, he clerked at the Richland County Public Defender’s office in Columbia and continued to work there as an attorney after earning his law license. He remained at the public defender’s office for six years, handling the full spectrum of criminal defense cases, ranging from the most serious felonies to misdemeanors. He tried numerous jury trials in both general sessions court and magistrates’ court, and was one of the lead defense attorneys in the first human-trafficking case ever brought before the South Carolina Grand Jury. In 2015, Bell received intensive additional training in the art of jury persuasion at the National Criminal Defense College Trial Practice Institute.