Director
Profile of Law in Action Founder Stephen John Henry
Stephen John “Steve” Henry grew up in Port Huron Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
with a psychology degree in 1972. In that same year Steve moved to Columbia, South Carolina where he was a juvenile halfway house
director as well as a mental health counselor at William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute which was located on the former South Carolina
State Hospital grounds.
In 1977 Steve graduated from the University of South Carolina Law School and after passing the bar exam that fall became an assistant
public defender in Greenville, South Carolina where he has lived and worked ever since. While at the public defender office Steve
became the deputy public defender representing juvenile and adult defendants in cases ranging from minor magistrate offenses to death
penalty murder trials.
In 1981 Steve went into private practice. During that year he helped form the Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment, a non-profit
organization that helps workers learn about their job rights. CAFÉ has chapters throughout the state and has its headquarters in
Hartsville, South Carolina.
Steve has a sole practice in Greenville and focuses on criminal and juvenile defense, employment law for employees and civil rights
case involving unlawful arrest and the use of excessive force. He also handles domestic cases, cases involving the rights of students and
other personal injury matters.
Steve founded Law in Action in 2001 to provide free lawyers for poor parents whose kids faced expulsion from school (Student Defense
Project) and to help magistrate court detainees obtain earlier release from jail (Jail Project). Law in Action also provides workshops
for non-lawyers (Workshops) and offers high school students mock trial programs (Mock Trials) twice per year with the help of its many
volunteers.
|
