Sara Svedberg

Sara Svedberg focuses her practice on complex civil litigation in the areas of products liability, employment, trade secrets, and other commercial disputes. She also counsels companies, organizations, and federal contractors on employment law matters on an ongoing basis, including under the ADA, ADEA, FLSA, FMLA, and Title VII, as well as under Executive Order 11246, VEVRAA, Section 503, and the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. As part of her practice, Sara has achieved numerous successes for her clients through significant summary dispositions of claims at the trial court level and through appeals before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. She has particular experience successfully challenging the qualifications and reliability of proffered experts retained by plaintiffs in complex civil litigation resulting in the summary disposition of claims.

As a native of Sweden, Sara maintains an active international practice in which she counsels European companies and individuals who are moving their operations to the United States, and she travels overseas a few times a year in that capacity.

Before joining the firm, Sara served as a law clerk for the Honorable Joseph F. Anderson Jr., U.S. District Judge, District of South Carolina, Columbia Division. As a judicial law clerk, she worked on several matters relevant to her practice. During her clerkship, she also had the honor of drafting appellate opinions while Judge Anderson was sitting by designation at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sara earned her law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law, cum laude, where she was a member of the Order of the Wig and Robe and the Order of the Coif. As a law student, she worked as a Research Assistant for David G. Owen, assisting with research for his hornbook, Owen & Davis on Products Liability, a multi-volume treatise. She also worked as a legal writing tutor, assisting other law students with their legal research and writing.

Before going to law school, Sara earned her undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in Journalism, and worked as a business editor for a large daily newspaper, guiding the daily news coverage, a monthly business magazine, and two weekly business sections. 

Reflecting her belief that it’s important to be involved in the community, Sara has spent many years working as a volunteer in the local school district and for other causes, including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Susan G. Komen organization.  She was a member of the Leadership Columbia Class of 2021, which worked on a yearlong project to benefit the Midlands Fatherhood Coalition, a nonprofit that offers education and services tailored to fathers who are trying to rebuild their lives and their families.

Outside Maynard Nexsen

As a child, one of Sara’s favorite parts of the day was when she and her older brother cuddled up next to their mom or dad for a bedtime story. What made the experience so memorable was that it was evident that their parents very much enjoyed reading out loud to them. Listening to their voices telling stories about magical lands and heroic fairy tale characters made Sara eager to learn how to read. She can still remember finishing her first chapter book by herself sitting in the backseat of the family car as her parents were driving them to a vacation destination. As she became a parent herself, Sara shared these moments with her young daughters and both of them have developed a deep love of books, reading, and learning. To help pass this on to other young children in the community, Sara has volunteered for many years in the local school district. As she helps young students with reading, Sara also reads out loud like her parents did to her.

A native of Sweden, Sara first came to the United States as a child when her dad's work at Exxon moved the family to the New York City area. After high school, she came back to the United States to go to college. Nowadays, Sara lives with her family in an old wooden house in downtown Columbia. With family in both the United States and Sweden, her daughters are raised as bilingual to help them stay connected to their roots.

• CALI Awards - Legal Writing I and II, Advanced Legal Writing, Torts II, Products Liability and Sustainable Business.
• "Legal Elite of the Midlands" - International Law; Employment - Defendant

• "Safety and Health Updates," Maynard Nexsen's Employment Law Certificate Series Webinar - June 12, 2019