Kristi Harrington
Charleston attorney and former South Carolina Circuit Court judge (Ninth Judicial Circuit, 2008-2018), now a Supreme Court certified mediator and arbitrator, appointed by Judge Donald B. Hocker on June 16, 2026 to serve as the third-party neutral over the 11,000+ disputed electronic files in ADW v. Berg.
Kristi Lea Harrington is a Charleston, South Carolina attorney and a former South Carolina Circuit Court judge. The South Carolina General Assembly elected her to the Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit (Charleston and Berkeley counties) in 2008; at the time she was among the youngest circuit judges in the state and one of only a handful of women then serving on the circuit bench. She served through June 2018 and, by her own firm's account, presided over more than 250 jury trials to verdict.
Before taking the bench, Harrington was a prosecutor. She served in the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office in Berkeley County from 2002 to 2008, and earlier as an Assistant District Attorney in the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office in Oklahoma from 1996 to 2001. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Francis Marion University in 1991 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 1996.
Since leaving the bench in 2018 she has worked as a neutral and trial consultant. She is a South Carolina Supreme Court certified mediator and arbitrator, a member of the American Arbitration Association's judicial panel, and operates her own practice, Harrington Dispute Resolution, based in North Charleston. She has also taught at the Charleston School of Law, where she holds the title of Distinguished Visiting Professor Emeritus.
Connection to the record
On June 16, 2026, Judge Donald B. Hocker appointed Harrington as the third-party neutral in Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg (Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671), one of the cluster of related cases tied to Rep. Nancy Mace and Patrick Bryant. The order describes her as "a very capable attorney in Charleston and former Circuit Court Judge" who "has agreed to serve."
Her assigned task is to review the more than 11,000 electronic files in what the court calls "Mace's Google Drive," materials that both Mace and Bryant claim to own, and to determine which, if any, warrant inclusion in discovery. Under the companion June 9, 2026 order setting the procedure, Harrington is to treat everything she receives as confidential, sign a sworn declaration to that effect, and produce any list of documents she believes should be included to counsel on an Attorney's Eyes Only basis, after which the parties have thirty days to object under seal. The appointing order splits her fees one-half to Mace/Berg and one-half to ADW/Bryant, and directs counsel to meet with her for an initial assessment because the court was concerned the volume could prove "very cost-prohibitive."
Harrington is a neutral, not counsel for any party, and is not a sitting judge; she appears in this record solely in her capacity as the court-appointed third-party neutral. The order makes no finding on privilege, admissibility, ownership, or wrongdoing, and the underlying allegations across the cases remain contested and unproven.
The appointment is detailed in the dispatch Court appoints former Judge Kristi Harrington as third-party neutral, which reproduces both orders in full.
Sources
- Kristi Lea Harrington, Ballotpedia (judicial election, service dates, education).
- Harrington Dispute Resolution (mediation/arbitration practice, North Charleston).
- Order Appointing a Third-Party Neutral (PDF, 3 pages), Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, June 16, 2026.
- Order Regarding Third-Party Neutral (PDF, 3 pages), same case, June 9, 2026.