South Carolina Public Interest Foundation

Greenville native and retired paving contractor, Edward D. “Ned” Sloan Jr. has been fighting to make sure South Carolina politicians stay true to the state’s Constitution. The Carpenter Law Firm has served as counsel for Ned Sloan since 1997.   In 2005, Mr. Sloan founded the South Carolina Public Interest Foundation to help fund his litigation activities.

The South Carolina Public Interest Foundation is a public service organization whose goal is defending  South Carolina’s Constitution from violation by governments, deterring violations of its statutory and common law by governments and promoting the rule of law. The Foundation uses litigation rather than political persuasion to meet its goals.  Mr. Sloan has been hailed as a leader in the movement to keep South Carolina’s politicians honest.

“He can stand up and take action and say things that people with less courage and fewer resources would be reluctant to say.”

-Jay Bender, Reid H. Montgomery Freedom of Information Chair, University of South Carolina School of Journalism & Mass Communications (Free Times,  “The Litigator” by Eric Kenneth Ward July 7-13 2004)

“Ed Sloan is a genius, a man with great mental capacity.”

-Roy McBee Smith, former Spartanburg County Attorney (Spartanburg Herald Jorunal, “Obey the Law” by Tom Langhorne December 28, 2003)

“Though suits may be won or lost, he has challenged our local government at all levels, keeping us all a little straighter in line.”
    -Greenville Magazine, December 2006,
     
    “It can be safely said that there is no other private citizen who has personally invested as much as Greenville’s Edward Sloan in trying to make officials at all levels of S.C. government follow the law.”

    -Barbara S. Williams, Charleston Post and Courier, August 31, 2008
     
    “A word to the wise: if Ed Sloan sues you- or even comes after you outside of court- settle. Quickly. Don’t waste the courts’ time or taxpayers’ dollars fighting what will, with what appears to be increasingly certainty, be a losing battle.”

    -Cindi Ross Scoppe, The State, September 10, 2008
     
    “But Sloan’s impact on South Carolina jurisprudence has been neither hidden nor small. Over the past five years, no private individual has brought – and mostly won- more original jurisdiction and other declaratory-action appeals before the S.C. Supreme Court than the 79-year-old retired contractor and father of four.”

    -Rick Brundrett, South Carolina Lawyers Weekly, October 13, 2008