The Legal series includes affidavits, appeals, articles, briefs, clippings, contracts, correspondence, deeds, depositions, handbooks, laws, leases, legislative bills, lists, office manuals, memoranda, minutes, newsletters, reports, telegrams, timesheets, titles, transcripts, wills, and other financial and legal documents. The items in this series date from 1913-1986 with most of them created during Dent’s post-White House legal career from 1974-1981.

Material in this series is arranged alphabetically by folder title. Photographs and oversize items have been removed to photograph and oversize storage. See the Photographs Series for photographs removed from this series.

Almost all of the material in this series is from Dent’s tenure at Dent, Kirkland, Taylor and Wilson and reflects his work for the firm. He handled adoptions, divorces, foreclosures, incorporations, lawsuits of all kinds, leases, Medicare and Social Security cases, mortgages, post-conviction relief, workmen’s compensation and other insurance claims and other legal matters. Two areas of particular interest are his work for the deaf and with the healthcare industry, particularly nursing homes. He represented Nelda K. Barnes, along with the National Center for Law and the Deaf (Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.), in Barnes v. Converse College. In this 1977 case the Fourth Circuit Court of South Carolina ruled that Converse College was required to provide an interpreter for her continuing education classes according to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This was one of the first rulings concerning the responsibility of colleges and universities to make accommodations to deaf students. Dent was also a lobbyist for the South Carolina Association for/of the Deaf and was involved in an attempt to create a separate commission for the deaf similar to the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.

Dent worked with South Carolina Healthcare Association as its counsel. Included among the nursing home cases he undertook is one involving Hopewell Nursing Home in Sumter, SC where in 1977 the courts declared the method used to determine Medicare reimbursement of owners and administrators of nursing homes was invalid. He was a director of the Health Investment Group, Inc. which bought out Rickard Nursing Homes in 1977. Rickard owned the Rickard Convalescent Home, the Holsteadt Nursing Home, and the Keisler Nursing Home, all in Lexington, SC. Dent was also a trustee of the corporation’s retirement plan. Records relating to the company include profit sharing plans, financial information, and board minutes, as well as records concerning legal work he did for the firm. One of the other cases Dent worked on was that of Wagdy Kamel Demian, who was an auditor for the South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS) and later worked for Governors John West (1971-1975) and James B. Edwards (1975-1979), as well as being involved in a Title XX audit for Governor Carroll Campbell (1987-1995). This was a discrimination grievance over a denied promotion that spiraled into dismissal, claims of financial mismanagement on the part of DSS, and allegations that a 1975 automobile accident involving Demian was actually an attack on him. There is much information on DSS, Medicaid payments to nursing homes, and the Title XX audit. Additional items of interest include a mortgage for Republican operative Lee Atwater; legal advice relating to real estate and other businesses for South Carolina Transportation Secretary Harry B. “Buck” Limehouse Jr.; and a collections case for Dr. Allen George Thurmond, brother of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond.

Other correspondents in this collection include South Carolina governor Carroll Campbell; businesswoman Darla Moore; Watergate figure Jeb Magruder; and U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond.

SEPARATION LIST Removed Oversize Box 1: