David Wilkins, recent US ambassador to Canada recently came to an end and former speaker of the South Carolina House, is returning to a practice of law, joining the government relations and administrative law practice at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, one of South Carolina’s largest law firms, with a special emphasis on US/Canada trade. He starts the job tomorrow.
Canada is the United States’ biggest trading partner.
He joins other prominent South Carolina political figures already working in government relations at Nelson Mullins. They include Dick Riley, two-time governor and US education secretary; Phillip Lader, former ambassador to the UK, administrator of the Small Business Administration and White House deputy chief of staff; and George B. Wolfe, former deputy general counsel at the Treasury Department and deputy director of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Also employed with Nelson Mullins are Wilkins’ former law partner, Timothy E. Madden, and his son, Robert W. Wilkins.
Wilkins, a Republican, was named to the coveted diplomatic post by former President George W. Bush, whom Wilkins had backed during South Carolina’s pivotal presidential primary in 2000 and again in 2004.
He received his law degree from the University of South Carolina.
