Columbia attorney Battiste assumes presidency of national legal group

Columbia attorney Luther Battiste III has been elected president of a national lawyers’ group, the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA).

Battiste, 70, who served 15 years on the Columbia City Council in the 1980s and 1990s, was installed last week for a one-year term at the group’s annual meeting in Charleston. Battiste is the first African American to serve as president since the group was formed in 1958.

Preserving America’s jury system for civil trials is a top mission for the group, which strives to end a common practice nowadays by many corporations that force employees and customers to sign agreements giving up their rights to a civil jury trial if they have a grievance, said Battiste.

Instead of a trial, many corporations have people to sign agreements committing them to a forced mediation process with an arbitrator — a process ABOTA says can lack legal protections such as the right to appeal.

“If you take a ride in an Uber, you’ve given up your right to take them to court,” Battiste says. “We’re not against arbitration, but we are against forced arbitration.”

A bill that would prohibit forced arbitration has passed the U.S. House but is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Another ABOTA initiative Battiste will promote during his year in office is a civics literacy program, which involves donating civics-related books to elementary schools and having ABOTA members go to the schools.

“We are trying to teach children the rights and responsibilities of citizens in the United States,” Battiste says. “We’re also trying to let them see lawyers and interest them in the practice of law.”

Battiste, whose mother was a librarian and whose wife of 45 years, Judy, is a librarian, said he has great faith in reading as a way to empower children to live up to their potential. “I’ve been influenced all my life by librarians,” he said.

Another influence was the late U.S. Judge Matthew Perry. In the 1950s and 1960s when Battiste was growing up in Orangeburg and Perry was a crusading civil rights lawyer, he saw Perry represent civil rights protesters.

It was Perry — who would go on to force Clemson to accept its first African American student, Harvey Gantt, and won several South Carolina civil rights cases in the U.S. Supreme Court — who inspired him to become a lawyer, said Battiste, who also participated in civil rights marches and protests.

“All my friends got arrested, but I never did,” Battiste says regretfully. Getting arrested and going to jail because of unjust segregation laws was regarded as a badge of honor back them, he says.

At his installation as president last week, Battiste was sworn in by former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal. Toal’s husband, Bill Toal, is a partner in Battiste’s firm.

ABOTA is an invitation-only group, made up of about 7,600 experienced attorneys including 167 in South Carolina. It chooses members on the basis of their civility, ethics and courtroom skills, and they are equally divided between plaintiffs’ and defense lawyers. Some judges are also members.

ABOTA’s main aim is to preserve and promote the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to civil jury trials. Civil cases span a wide range of the law and include contract disputes, medical malpractice cases and class actions against corporations charged with doing some kind of harm to the public.

Robert Coble, a longtime lawyer whose 20 years as Columbia’s mayor overlapped with eight years of Battiste’s time on Columbia City Council, said Battiste is “an outstanding lawyer and his integrity is second to none.”

“Luther is very polite but very tough,” Coble said.

Besides the law, Battiste has another passion: he is a radio deejay known as “the Jazz man” who hosts a two-hour weekly jazz program on WVCD at Voorhees College. During the show, which is broadcast Sunday and streamed on the Internet, Battiste plays old and new jazz icons like Miles Davis and Gregory Porter and tells stories about their lives and music.

Asked how he reconciles courtroom law — with its strict rules and largely scripted presentations — with jazz, music known for its surprises and spontaneous riffs, Battiste has ready answers.

“You have to be able to improvise in both,” said Battiste, who doesn’t play an instrument but if he did, he says, it would be a saxophone. And, he noted, both the law and jazz are about communication.

“I sign off every program with ‘Jazz lives,’ “ said Battiste, who doesn’t plan on giving up his radio show — or the law — while he is ABOTA president.

This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 1:00 PM.