NATIONAL CRIMINAL DEFENSE COLLEGE ALUMNI

Chelsea McNeill began her career as a Clinical Addictions Counselor. She went to law school to become a public defender. She focused her career in the most underserved, rural, and underfunded South Carolina counties. She became the Chief Public Defender for Laurens County in 2015 and then was appointed to be the 8th Judicial Circuit Public Defender in 2020, heading up 4 counties. Chelsea is currently in that role and is incredibly proud of the office she has built since 2020. She is also on the Board of Directors for the SC Public Defender Association, is a member of both the SC Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She is a member of the National Public Defender Association, the Criminal Law Section of the SC bar (and former board member), a current Board Member for the Humane Society of Greenwood County, and a current Rotarian. She is a frequent speaker at CLE’s around SC and an annual guest lecturer at Wofford College’s Psychology and Law class. She is also a proud alumni of NCDC’s June Class of 2015 and a 2020 Riley Fellow for the Diversity Leaders Initiative at Furman University. Chelsea lives with her two dogs in Greenwood, SC, where her main office is located.