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James Fletcher Thompson was born in Savannah, Georgia, on December 12, 1960. He graduated from Paul M. Dorman High School in 1979 where he was elected Student Body President. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Vanderbilt University in 1983 and served as President of the Student Government Association.

Following three years of work in Washington, D.C. in a variety of political and public interest endeavors, Mr. Thompson returned to South Carolina to study law. While at the University of South Carolina School of Law, he served on the Board of Editors of the South Carolina Law Review. He graduated with a Juris Doctorate Degree in 1989 and joined his father, Fletcher D. Thompson, in law practice the same year.

Mr. Thompson=s study of South Carolina Adoption Law was published in the South Carolina Law Review in 1989. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law teaching a course entitled "Parents, Children and the Law" from 1996 - 2001.

Mr. Thompson has received national and state recognition for his service on behalf of children and adoptive families. In 1999, the inaugural year of the award, Mr. Thompson and his father were recognized in Washington, D.C., with the "Angel in Adoption" award from the United States Congressional Coalition on Adoption. In 2005, Mr. Thompson was honored by the South Carolina Council on Adoptable Children as the Adoption Advocate of the Year, and in 2008 was inducted into the South Carolina Adoption Hall of Fame.

In 2001, Mr. Thompson was recommended by the President of the South Carolina Bar and appointed by the Governor of South Carolina as the sole private practice attorney to serve on the Adoptions Procedure Study Committee. This committee was formed through a joint resolution of the South Carolina House and Senate and was charged with amending the state adoption law. Again, in 2007, Mr. Thompson was the sole private practice attorney to be appointed by the governor to serve on the Children in Foster Care and Adoption Services Task Force.

Mr. Thompson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. In February 2008, pursuant to the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, he became one of two attorneys in the Nation to achieve Hague approval from the Council on Accreditation as authorized by the United States Department of State.

Mr. Thompson is presently working on a book to be published by the South Carolina Bar regarding termination of parental rights [TPR], adoption and assisted reproductive technology.

Mr. Thompson also frequently lectures throughout the state and country on adoption, TPR, and child welfare issues for professional and civic groups and has served as a spokesperson on these issues for the media. Mr. Thompson also has testified before the South Carolina General Assembly on numerous occasions on adoption bills and other bills impacting families and children.

Mr. Thompson has served on the South Carolina Bar Judicial Qualifications Committee and is a Life Fellow of the South Carolina Bar Foundation. Mr. Thompson received an "AV" rating by Martindale-Hubbell, that publication's highest distinction bestowed on a practicing attorney.

Mr. Thompson has volunteered his time with many civic, religious and child advocacy organizations, including the Children's Advocacy Center, The Ellen Hines Smith Girls' Home, The Family Care Council, the Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg, Leadership Spartanburg, the Episcopal Church of the Advent Foundation (past president) and the Spartanburg Lions Club (past president).

He is past president of the board of Regional Hospice and co-chair of the fund-raising campaign to build the Regional Hospice Home. He has also served as board member of Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System Foundation and on the Governance Committee of the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees.

He is married and has three children. He is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Advent.

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