Event Information

Circuit Deputy Solicitor April Sampson graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1995 and from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1998. She became a member of the South Carolina Bar in November of 1998. Mrs. Sampson began her legal career with Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities where she handled legal matters for those with physical and mental disabilities.

A certified specialist in labor and employment law, Nekki Shutt has been involved in the employment / human resources field for more than 35 years, beginning with her work in the human resources department of a publicly-traded property and casualty insurance company. Nekki eventually became the company’s corporate recruiter, responsible for hiring approximately 225 employees on an annual basis as well as managing its temporary workforce. This is her 29^th year practicing law. 

While Nekki earned her juris doctor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, she worked as a graduate assistant in what is now the Master’s in Human Resources Program at the USC Darla Moore School of Business. She also clerked for the law firm that represented the insurer where she had previously been employed. Since then, Nekki has built on her human resources experience and developed a civil litigation practice with an emphasis on employee benefits (ERISA) and employment law. From 2000 to 2005, she also was an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, teaching a course for third-year law students entitled “Diversity and the Law,” emphasizing social justice issues involving race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, and the poor.  More than six years ago, Nekki, Malissa Burnette, and Kathleen McDaniel founded Burnette Shutt & McDaniel, PA, a progressive law firm with employment law, civil rights, and civil litigation as its focus.  Notably, the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law recently selected their law firm as the recipient of 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Distinguished Service Award. 

                                    Nekki frequently has received professional recognition and honors. She is secretary of the SC Bar’s Board of Governors and in the House of Delegates.  She chaired the SC Bar’s Labor and Employment Section in 2010, and has served on its  executive  committee for 15 plus years.  For the past five years, she has been named “Lawyer of the Year” in ERISA Litigation by peers through Best Lawyers.  She was the 2018 Recipient of the Civic Star Award from the Richland County Bar Association. She was a 2016 honoree by South Carolina Lawyers Weekly for Leadership in the Law. The University of South Carolina School of Law Alumni Association awarded her the James Petigru Compleat Lawyer Award, Silver Medallion in 2005. Her peers have selected her for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2010 to present in the field of labor and employment law. She’s also continuously educates others in her field through her writing and seminar presentations like “Modern Family I and II” on protecting LGBT clients, “Against the Wind: a history of the civil rights movement in South Carolina as told through case law and testimony,” and 10 years of the annual Fundamentals of Employment Law in South Carolina, one of the SC Bar’s Essential Series. Nekki authored the ERISA chapters in the Labor and Employment Law for South Carolina Lawyer 2007, 2011, 2019, and 2024 editions. She also is the author of a chapter on employment law for Paralegal Survival Guide, published by South Carolina Bar Association in 2010. 

Nekki was one of the lead attorneys in Condon v. Haley, the 2014 federal lawsuit which made South Carolina the 35 state to recognize marriage equality in the country.