He is graduate of the College of William & Mary School of Law where he was a member of The Order of the Coif and The Order of Barristers and won national awards in advocacy. He became a trial lawyer – first with Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., and now with Smyth Whitley, LLC – following a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Dennis W. Shedd of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.