Taking a Side

Wes Allison uses his journalism background to advocate for the little guy 

Published in 2024 South Carolina Super Lawyers magazine

By Taylor Kuether on April 25, 2024

What does it take to be a journalist? According to Wes Allison: “I dig up facts and I hassle the man.” 

Now a plaintiff’s lawyer, Allison uses those skills to advocate for clients.

“I typically bring lawsuits—on behalf of people who couldn’t normally afford a lawyer—against larger entities, hospitals, banks, insurance companies, trucking companies,” he says. “It’s sort of a David-and-Goliath existence.” 

Allison worked as a journalist for 18 years before making the switch to law in 2009, when newsrooms started to shrink and budgets got slashed. He loved the work, though. “I miss reporters, it’s a funny group of people,” he says. “Reporters are special. Little and big newspapers are special places, and they have a lot of characters. I miss that.”

The quick turnarounds were another perk.

Allison on the campaign trail outside John McCain’s plane.

“The ability to have a big story, work it for a day or two days or a week and finish it, it runs and you move onto the next thing is kind of nice,” he says. “In law, most of my cases take years to resolve. I like to dig in and spend time with a case, but sometimes the instant gratification of doing the job, banging it out, getting it in the paper the next day and then moving on, that’s fun.”

He’s still using his award-winning reporting chops in his legal work: writing quickly yet concisely and colorfully, and going through records for facts and presenting them cogently. “All good lawyers are good researchers,” Allison says. “As journalists we’re taught to be unbiased and impartial, and to look at both sides, and that helps a lot with my case selection and how I go about developing or building my cases.”

But the biggest skill reporting taught him—and one that sets him apart now—was to get boots on the ground. “There’s a term called shoe-leather reporting, where you’re wearing out your shoe leather getting out there and talking to people,” says Allison. “A lot of lawyers count on investigators to do that, and there’s an argument to be made for that, but what we like to do at our firm is get out there.”

In one of his earliest cases, nearly 12 years ago, a car hit a 12-year-old on his bike, resulting in injuries that required his jaw to be wired shut. The driver said she was driving through a neighborhood when the child came out of a side street, didn’t stop, and ran into her. Her insurance company denied liability. Allison’s client said he was biking down the side of the road and the driver clipped him with her car.

“That’s two conflicting stories,” he says. “In her story, I would probably lose. In the kid’s story, I would probably win.” 

So Allison started knocking on doors. He found someone who hadn’t seen the incident, but saw the ambulance while on his porch. “I got him to describe where the ambulance was and it was right where my client said he’d gotten hit. It wasn’t at the intersection where the driver said he hit her, but in the middle between two intersections,” says Allison.

Next, he sought out the bike. The driver claimed the child’s bike had no lights or reflectors. Allison was pointed toward the local metal scrapper who, indeed, had the bike. “And the bike had reflectors,” says Allison. “So it was more evidence that my kid’s story was accurate. By doing that sort of gumshoe reporting, I was able to prove that, more likely than not, this woman had indeed hit this kid on his bike as she passed him, not that this kid had run into the side of her Lexus.” 

After Allison’s investigation, they settled the case for the policy limits—a victory. 

“As a journalist, if you do it right, you’re on the side of good for your community and your readers,” he says. “One of the things I really like about the practice of law is that I get to have a very personal relationship with my clients. Instead of being out there trying to do right for our readership, I’m out there doing right for one person or one family.”

Taking a side is one of the big differences between his careers. “In journalism, you take a side for truth, whatever it is. Now I’m taking a position and unabashedly taking a side,” he says.

And his is with the little guy. 

“It sounds hokey, but for injured people the law is all they have sometimes,” Allison says. “If the person who injured them doesn’t pay up—which doesn’t happen that much—they need an advocate because they’ve been hurt really bad, and they’ve lost wages and they’ve got medical bills and they’ve lost quality of life. They may have lost a loved one. And to get close to those people and to advocate on their behalf is one of the most rewarding parts of practicing law.”