Many Manning residents remember John C. Land III as a state senator, who served this state for five decades. Many more also know him as a compassionate and caring man who helped them or a loved one through troubling times.
Land grew up in Manning, where his father owned a service station. As a youth, Land had developed a love of hunting and fishing, so after high school graduation, he completed a one-year vocational course at the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. He began his adult career as a forester with a paper company in Georgia.
Two years later, in 1962, Land knew he wanted to return to his roots in South Carolina, but he knew he needed a college education. He enrolled at the University of South Carolina and earned a business degree, immediately followed by acceptance into the law school at USC. His first experience with politics spanned the eight years he was in college at USC, while he served as a page for the South Carolina House of Representatives.
After earning his law degree, Land returned to Manning, with his wife, Marie, opening his law practice on March 4, 1968. Fifty years ago, a country attorney served all of the community’s legal needs, including family law, criminal law, personal injury law, wills, estates, and adoptions. “I always saw myself as a ‘little people’s’ lawyer. People don’t claim to be little people until big people land on them. So that’s what I was, which naturally pushed me toward personal injury.” Not long after returning to South Carolina, Land was appointed to the Highway Commission. In time, he found narrowing his practice further to primarily workers’ compensation cases would allow him to devote himself not only to his law practice, but also to his four years with the Highway Commission and his 38 years in the state house and senate.
In the ensuing years, Land’s three children chose to go to law school, and each returned home to work with their father’s law firm, taking on the responsibilities for the other practice areas the firm covers. These include Social Security disability, auto accidents, criminal defense, estate planning, family law, personal injury, probate, slip-and-fall accidents, and traffic violations. However, after retiring from government service in 2012, which allowed John to wholly devote himself to the law again, he chose to remain focused on workers’ compensation cases.
Land’s oldest grandson is currently earning a degree at Eastern Carolina University in North Carolina with plans to return to South Carolina to pursue a law degree. As with his children, Land won’t ask him to return to the family business in Manning, but he would welcome his grandson, should he choose to return.
What has been Land’s most meaningful case personally? “Well, there are thousands of them. Every time I take an injured worker who’s been denied his rightful benefits and bring it to a successful conclusion, that is my best case. It’s not one. It’s all of them combined that make you happy and make you satisfied and make you feel you’ve done something.”
