Lawyer's life, career run like clockwork

Melissa Haneline
The Post and Courier

Charleston lawyer Kenny Krawcheck, shown on a dock at the Carolina Yacht Club, is an avid sailor who has won several Sunfish Regionals. He placed 14th in the Sunfish Worlds when they were held in Charleston Harbor in 2006.

It seems only natural that Kenny Krawcheck just moved his office into an old Broad Street house built by a watchmaker. As the Charleston lawyer himself is the first to admit, you could set your watch by him.

"I probably have changed less than any person I know," Krawcheck says. "If I were back, say, as a senior in high school and thought about where I would be at the age of 45 and what I'd be doing, I'd pretty well be on the mark."

He ticks off the list: "I wanted to be a lawyer; I'm a lawyer. I wanted to still be racing sailboats; I'm still racing the exact same sailboats. I wanted to practice law in downtown Charleston; I am. Wanted to have a great, wonderful marriage; I do. If I had a boy, I wanted to name him Jack, and I have that.

"I live in downtown Charleston ... 50 yards from where I grew up. I'm still wearing a white shirt, red and blue tie, khaki pants and brown shoes and a blue blazer. And I really still do most of the same things I've always done, in most of the same ways."

Life fits Krawcheck like those classic khakis, and he smiles. "I actually know for a fact that I'm the most fortunate person I know."

Family matters

Kenneth C. Krawcheck was born in New Orleans, where his parents, Leonard and Townie Krawcheck, lived while Leonard attended law school at Tulane. Two years later, the family moved back to Charleston, where the couple had grown up. Leonard Krawcheck's parents, Esther and Jack Krawcheck, decided at that time to move out of their Colonial Street house, and Leonard's family moved in.

Kenny, his two sisters and his brother lived a life much like his own son, 8-year-old Jack, lives today.

"The same things happen on the west side of the peninsula now that happened when I was a kid," he says. "The kids all play in the street. You're friends with your neighbors, you're riding bikes, skateboards, playing football in the yards, going over to the Horse Lot and Moultrie playground, sneaking down the steps at the foot of the Fort Sumter House at White Point Garden looking for sharks' teeth."

But Krawcheck also says his son's childhood, in some ways, is better. "The vibrancy of the city, the people on the streets. You walk down King Street and there's so much going on, all the shops and the restaurants, up and down East Bay Street and the Market. ... Jack's growing up in arguably the greatest city in America."

Krawcheck and his wife, Trudie, have been married 18 years. He knew of her through her brothers, who, like Krawcheck, attended Porter-Gaud, but he didn't meet her until after he got out of law school.

"It took me exactly three dates to decide I wanted to marry her. It took me a little longer to persuade her," he says.

The law

Krawcheck graduated from Tulane University in 1985, then headed to law school at the University of South Carolina. He was admitted to the bar in 1988.

Stephen Spitz, professor of law at the Charleston School of Law, taught Krawcheck at USC and says that, even among the many outstanding law students he's had over the years, Krawcheck stands out.

"First, Kenny is an exceptional lawyer. Second, and perhaps just as importantly — or even more importantly — he is an exceptional person," Spitz says. "In his days at law school as a law student, for example, he was very well-liked and respected by both the faculty and his fellow students, and that combination, inside any law school, is always unusual."

Krawcheck practiced in the same law office as his father for 17 years, moving into the new office on Broad Street just about nine months ago. He shares the space with friend and fellow lawyer Peter Shahid. About half of Krawcheck's practice is construction law; the other half is cases that involve land rights, such as ownership disputes, questions of access and real estate sales contract problems.

Spitz says that on top of the day-to-day demands of a law practice, Krawcheck gives his time, uncompensated, to be a guest lecturer at the law school.

"Over the years, Kenny has always been available to personally discuss with me any and all professional questions that I may have had, and to freely share his own personal and candid thoughts with me," Spitz says. "This is a highly admirable trait, and I feel most grateful for his always being so available."

The letters

A recent case involving ownership of some Civil War-era letters has been one of the landmarks in Krawcheck's practice. "It's the single most interesting thing, I'm sure, that I'll ever handle," he says.

The case involved whether Seabrook Island resident Thomas Willcox had the right to sell 444 letters and documents dating back to wartime South Carolina. The papers included letters to two governors and various military leaders, and three handwritten letters from Robert E. Lee. The state claimed the letters were state property. Krawcheck represented Willcox.

"This case had everything," Krawcheck says. "I'm very much an amateur history buff. We grow up amongst cannons around here. We've got shell fragments lodged in our attics. ... You turn around and you smack your nose on history."

The case also appealed to him from a legal standpoint because it involved balancing the rights of the state versus those of an individual, he says.

Krawcheck and his client lost the first round in the courts, appealed the decision and won the appeal. "So we're 1-and-1," he says. "We go to the Fourth Circuit Court for the tie-breaker, and fortunately, we prevail in the Fourth Circuit."

The state then turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the appeal, so Willcox's victory stood.

Float your boat

One of Krawcheck's first loves was sailing, and in recent years he has competed in regional, national and even world championships.

He sails Sunfish and Lasers, both small boats designed for just one person, and there's a reason for that. "I'm impossible to get along with on a boat," he says. "I like to think I'm a pretty mild-mannered guy in regular life, but when I get on a sailboat, if I'm with anyone else, I have a really loud voice, and the words I say are not nice words."

Krawcheck has won several Sunfish Regionals, finished 14th in the Sunfish Worlds when they were held in Charleston in 2006 and finished as high as sixth in the Sunfish North America championships.

He says he also taught David Loring, now a two-time Worlds winner, how to sail a Sunfish.

Circle of friends

When Krawcheck reflects on the clockwork fashion in which his life has progressed, he realizes there's one way it's been different than he would have predicted 30 years ago: He has close friends — and lots of them.

"I was a pretty lonely child growing up," he says. "I was shy, more than a little nerdy, I think. Kind of had a late growth spurt. Didn't really open up very much until late in high school and part of college and afterwards. I was introverted.

"If there's one blessing in my life that's sort of unexpected ... and that's changed me and made me a better person and that I'm really grateful for, (it's that) I have the best friends in the world," he says. "Growing up, there were three, four, five people I was close to, and now that's multiplied, thankfully, by five or six times.

"I wish I could put the list in the paper and thank them. But they know who they are."