Sumter native Ed Bell named to ‘Best Lawyers’

Joe Perry, The Item writer
September 28, 2011

J. Edward (Ed) Bell III, founding partner of the Bell Legal Group of Georgetown, S.C., has been selected by his peers for the 2012 edition of "The Best Lawyers in America."

J. Edward “Ed” Bell III, a Georgetown lawyer whose careere began in Sumter, was recently selected for the 2012 edition of “The Best Lawyers in America,” according to a press release from his office.

Over the course of 30 years, Bell has specialized in personal injury litigation and property liability litigation as well as eminent domain and condemnation law.

According to its website, “The Best Lawyers in America” is the most respected peer review publication that has help lawyers and clients find counsel in unfamiliar areas of our law or jurisdictions for 25 years.

Lists of outstanding attorneys are complied [sic] via peer surveys – the current 2011 edition is based on more than 3.1 million detailed evaluations of lawyers and includes of 40,000 attorneys in 126 practice areas.

In 1983, Bell founded The Bell Legal Group with offices in Georgetown and Sumter, which has grown to include seven attorneys and a staff of 20 that has successfully tried cased at the local, state and national level.

Now knows as the Bell Legal Group with offices in Georgetown and Sumter, the firm has has taken on several high profile environmental cases as well, such as a lawsuit against International Paper Co. Filed in federal court, that suite alleges the plant in Georgetown released pollution that caused harm to the citizenry.

Bell also filed a lawsuit last summer against BP, Halliburton, Transocean and Cameron International to preemptively take action if any oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon rig was to reach South Carolina’s shorts.

In December 5, Bell represented the widow of a Summerton pastor who died at Sumter-Lee Regional Detention Center. The defendants were Easter Health Care, which provided services to the jail, as well as Tuomey Regional Medical Center, two physicians and Sumter County.

In September, the James E. Bell Jr., M.D. Women and Infants Pavilion was unveiled at Tuomey Regional Medical Center, a $23.6 million facility named after Ed Bell’s late father, an obstetrician who delivered thousands of babies over the course of his nearly 50-year career.

At the unveiling, Bell said his father “always looked out for the best of people.”