A top SC prosecutor in U.S. Attorney’s Office leaves for large Columbia law firm

Brook Andrews, a federal prosecutor who has spent the last three years in the number one staff spot in the U.S. Attorney’s office for South Carolina, is joining Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, a large Columbia-headquartered law firm.

“To have had the opportunities I’ve had to work with every one of you has been the blessing of my life and career,” the Columbia-born Andrews told more than 60 people — U.S. Attorney’s Office staff, federal prosecutors and civil lawyers, FBI and DEA agents — at a recent farewell gathering at a West Columbia brewery.

Alluding without going into detail to the current situation in the U.S. Justice Department, where numerous lawyers have been fired or left because of President Donald Trump’s new hands-on style, Andrews said, “This is a hard time to be a federal employee, not just because of some of things you’re putting up with. But I think the public itself has never had less of a sense of trust and faith in government institutions...

“People speak to me about the department, they are worried. I say, ‘Don’t worry about the department. The department’s full of good people, and that’s not going to change. You can change policy, but you have to fire a hell of a lot of good people to empty this department of the life blood, the life and the soul of how this place works. Just keep doing what you do.”

Attendees signed a large traditional good-bye card with the Justice Department’s emblematic flying eagle and the motto: Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur -- loosely translated from the Latin as “he who follows the pursuit of justice.”

Andrews, 46, who was born in Columbia, will become a partner with Nelson Mullins. With more than 1,000 lawyers, it is the 60th largest firm in the country and has a reputation for big salaries and hiring young lawyers who’ve gotten top grades in law school. Its attorneys practice in numerous states and in many areas, from defending large corporate interests as well as running a pro bono program that has included winning better treatment for mentally ill inmates in the S.C. Department of Corrections.

It’s not unusual for lawyers like Andrews to move to another legal job after a stint in the U.S. Attorney’s office and put their experience and personal connections to work helping clients stay out of trouble with the government or defending them when they are accused of running afoul of federal laws. Although he’s moving into a new legal world, his new office on the 14th floor of Nelson Mullins is just a block and a half down Main Street from his old fifth-floor U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Andrews brings a more than average set of credentials to the private sector. As the top staff person for the former U.S. attorney Adair Boroughs, who left the office in February, Andrews oversaw 140 people as well as hundreds of civil and criminal investigations and prosecutions. He also supervised ethics, budgeting and human resources matters.

It was a good time to move on for Andrews. The expected incoming U.S. Attorney, Bryan Stirling, who was at Andrews’ farewell party, will likely appoint a former federal prosecutor, Lance Crick, to the post of First Assistant U.S. Attorney. Andrews was the number two under a Democratically-appointed U.S. Attorney, and President Donald Trump has made it clear he puts loyalty to himself at a high premium. Both Stirling and Crick are Republicans.

In his 10 years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbia, Andrews has participated in or overseen high-profile criminal prosecutions across the state in health care fraud, securities fraud, public corruption and other matters.

• The multi-year FBI investigation into the now-defunct SCANA electric utility and Westinghouse Electric’s epic failure to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer plant in Fairfield County. The investigation resulted in two ex-SCANA top officials and two Westinghouse officials being convicted of various crimes.
• The case of Daqua Ritter, convicted in 2024 of killing a South Carolina transgender woman in the first federal hate crimes trial involving a transgender victim. Ritter was sentenced to life.
• Litigating a post-conviction hearing in 2021 in the case of Michael Slager, a former North Charleston police officer who shot and killed a fleeing but unarmed African-American man in the back after a routine traffic stop. Slager received a 20-year prison sentence, and Andrews convinced U.S. Judge Richard Gergel to uphold the sentence.

Andrews’ background also includes graduating from Davidson College and the University of South Carolina Law School, now the USC Rice Law School; teaching at the law school; clerkships with former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal and U.S. Judge Margaret Seymour, and being in a selective U.S. Justice Department program for young lawyers. He is married to Kim Andrews and has three children, ages 3-8.

At the farewell event, Boroughs — now a visiting assistant professor at the USC Rice School of Law — said she chose Andrews to be her number two because not only was he smart and had the respect of judges and lawyers but he had integrity — he was going to be “doing the right thing for the right reasons in the right way.”

At its best, the Justice Department upholds the American citizen’s faith in the rule of law and “our system of justice,” Boroughs said. “Brook lived and breathed, and still does, that faith in the department and in you-all.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2025 at 1:00 PM.