Mercedes L. Pinckney Reese joins Lexington County School District One on May 30, 2023 as the district’s new director of legal services and Title IX, which was approved by the Lexington One Board of Trustees at the March 21, 2023 meeting.

Pinckney Reese is an experienced lawyer, truancy judge and public defender. In 2012, she joined the CW Law Firm in Durham, North Carolina as an associate attorney. During this time, she also volunteered with the Elna B. Spaulding Conflict Resolution Center to serve as the truancy court judge for Shepard Magnet Middle School. Pinckney Reese also worked in the New Hanover County Public Defender’s Office in Wilmington, NC as the assistant public defender.

In 2015, Pinckney Reese moved to South Carolina and became a contract attorney with Motley Rice, LLC in Mount Pleasant. Later that year, she joined the College of Charleston to serve as the college’s assistant general counsel. In 2017, she became the general counsel for South Carolina State University where she served until 2020, when she went to work with the United State Air Force Academy as an associate general counsel. In 2021, Pinckney Reese joined Charleston County School District as the district’s general counsel.

Pinckney Reese graduated from College of Charleston with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She received a Juris Doctor from North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, as well as a Master of Laws in Intercultural Human Rights from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida. She was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in 2011 and the South Carolina State Bar in 2015.

She is a member of the National Association of Women Lawyers, the South Carolina Association of Women Lawyers, the Corporate Counsel Women of Color, the South Carolina Black Lawyers Association and the College of Charleston Alumni Association Board of Directors.