Andre Coaxum

About Andre Coaxum

When you are accused of a crime, the charge is only the beginning of the story.
I am Andre Coaxum, a South Carolina criminal defense attorney with Carolina Criminal Defense. I represent people facing DUI charges, drug charges, domestic violence allegations, assault charges, traffic offenses, probation violations, and other misdemeanor and felony matters in York County and surrounding South Carolina communities.

Before entering private criminal defense practice, I served as both a judicial law clerk and an assistant solicitor. Those experiences taught me how courts evaluate legal arguments, how prosecutors examine criminal cases, and why a defense attorney must look beyond the initial allegations to understand what the evidence actually shows.

After law school, I served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Daniel D. Hall. Working in a circuit judge’s chambers showed me how courts evaluate evidence, legal arguments, attorney credibility, and courtroom preparation. It reinforced an important lesson that continues to guide my work: effective advocacy begins long before an attorney enters the courtroom.

I later served as an Assistant Solicitor in South Carolina’s Sixth Judicial Circuit, where my work focused primarily on DUI prosecutions in Lancaster, Chester, and Fairfield Counties. In that role, I reviewed law-enforcement investigations, police reports, recordings, witness accounts, and other evidence while appearing in court on behalf of the State. That experience taught me how prosecutors evaluate criminal cases, and where important questions, inconsistencies, or weaknesses may exist in the State’s evidence.

After leaving the Solicitor’s Office, I entered private practice and began representing people accused of crimes. That transition reinforced something central to my approach today: a criminal case cannot be understood only through a police report or charging document. A defense attorney must investigate what happened, test the State’s evidence, understand the client’s circumstances, and consider how every possible outcome could affect the client’s freedom, employment, family, reputation, and future.

A Charleston native, I earned my undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before returning to South Carolina for law school and my legal career.