South Carolina

W. Christopher Swett
Associate

Chris is a member of Motley Rice's Occupational Disease and Toxic Tort Practice Group and represents individuals harmed by corporate misconduct and malfeasance. He primarily focuses his efforts on assisting workers and families suffering from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases due to occupational, environmental or household asbestos exposure. On behalf of asbestos victims, he handles complex litigation against manufacturers, property owners and contractors who sold or installed defective or hazardous asbestos-containing products.

In the area of catastrophic injury, Chris represents individual victims and families affected by tragic events caused by hazardous consumer products, occupational and industrial accidents, fires, premise injuries and other incidents of negligence.

Prior to joining Motley Rice, Chris served as a law clerk to the Honorable R. Bryan Harwell of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, gaining two years of strong writing and research experience in the legal field. In this capacity, he conducted complex research and prepared proposed orders involving numerous areas of the law, assisted with various phases of both civil and criminal trials and researched opinions for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He also spent one year as a summer associate with a South Carolina-based law firm handling case matters in areas such as environmental litigation, property tax sale disputes, the Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Chris has additional experience in medical litigation, having served as a law clerk with another South Carolina firm drafting discovery and pretrial motions and conducting research for pharmaceutical cases such as In re Prempro Products Liability Litigation.

A recipient of the Citadel Scholar full academic scholarship and the Citadel Honors Program Gold Seal, Chris was honored with the University of South Carolina School of Law's Cali Award for environmental law.  Additionally, he served as Senior Associate Editor for the Southeastern Environmental Law Journal and is the author of published pieces concerning environmental law such as Politics, Money, and Radioactive Waste: The Savannah River Site Conundrum, 16.2 Se. Envtl. L.J. 391 (2008). He was also inducted into the Order of the Coif and Order of the Wig and Robe.

Chris is a member of the American Association for Justice, American Bar Association, South Carolina Association for Justice and Charleston County Bar Association. He is active in his local community and proudly serves as class chairman for The Citadel Foundation, helping to raise money for need-based scholarship funding. 

* Please remember that every case is different. Any result we achieve for one client in one matter does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.