Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega Announces 2025 Scholarship Winner

AIKEN, S.C., July 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega in South Carolina has announced the Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega 2025 Scholarship Winner. This year's prompt was to articulate what the world would look like without personal injury lawyers.

Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega has announced the Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega 2025 Scholarship winner: Porter Alexander Tynes, III, from the University of Georgia School of Law.

Each year, the law firm hosts a scholarship contest to find imaginative and promising law students who stand to shape the legal industry once they finish their degrees and start representing clients. Although Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega is located in South Carolina, university students from across the nation can enter the scholarship contest. This year's prompt was: "What would the world be like without personal injury lawyers?"

After careful review and deliberation, Porter Alexander Tynes, III, was chosen as the 2025 Scholarship winner. Everyone agreed that his essay truly stood out from the others, which were all impressive in their own ways, due to its depth, imagination, and clear presentation of how many different ripple effects would occur if personal injury attorneys were no longer around to protect the rights of injured parties.

Porter shared this quote after being notified that he was the winner: "Receiving this scholarship allows me to keep doing what I love: pursuing my purpose through the law. I am forever grateful to Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega, LLC, and the work they are doing."

Everyone at Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega has congratulated Porter for winning the firm's annual scholarship contest. Now, the attorneys look forward to seeing him accomplish great things in both his higher education and the legal career he intends to start as soon as he can.

Porter's winning essay is included in full below. Interested parties can learn more about Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega, which serves personal injury clients throughout South Carolina, by visiting www.sbltv.law.

"A World Without Personal Injury Lawyers" by Porter Alexander Tynes, III

Imagine Highway 64 in Memphis just after rush hour, sunlight bouncing off windshields, brake lights flashing like Morse code. That's where my aunt's life veered off course. A distracted driver ran a red light, slamming into her car. In seconds: a totaled car, a bruised leg, and two shaken passengers—my aunt and my little cousin in the back seat. However, what if that crash had happened in a world without personal injury attorneys?

In that world, my aunt would have faced the insurance company alone. She wouldn't have known that the adjuster's first offer barely covered her ER visit. She wouldn't have had someone to investigate the scene, pull the traffic cam footage, or demand fair compensation for her child's trauma. Her pain would have been hers to carry, physically, emotionally, and financially. This isn't just about one family on one Memphis highway. It's about what happens to fairness when no one is hired to fight for it. Without personal injury lawyers, the legal system becomes a maze only the powerful can navigate. Individuals, especially working-class people, single parents, and the elderly, would be left to fend for themselves against insurance teams and corporate legal departments. The right to "have your day in court" would still exist, but only on paper.

Businesses might cheer at first. No lawyers means fewer lawsuits and lower liability. But without the threat of accountability, safety becomes optional. Defective products would go unchallenged. Dangerous shortcuts in construction or food production could slip by unnoticed. Companies that care would be undermined by those that cut corners. Eventually, consumers stop trusting—not just brands, but entire industries.

And society as a whole? We lose more than lawsuits. We lose deterrence. Personal injury attorneys don't just help individuals. They push entire systems to be safer. Without them, seatbelts might still be optional. Tobacco ads might still target children. Hospitals might still cover up preventable errors. These lawyers shape behavior through accountability, and that, in turn, shapes culture.

We often treat personal injury lawyers as punchlines, until we need one. Until someone's life is upended by a drunk driver, a defective crib, or a careless pharmacist. When that day comes, you don't want a sympathy card. You want someone with subpoena power.

That wreck on Highway 64 could have ended very differently. Without her lawyer, my aunt might never have gotten her car replaced, her medical bills paid, or her voice heard. That lawyer didn't erase the trauma, but they helped turn the page.

Personal injury lawyers don't just file paperwork. They protect dignity. They restore balance. And in a world without them, justice would exist, but only for the people who could afford to chase it.

Media Contact:
Rylee King
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SOURCE Smith, Born, Leventis, Taylor & Vega, LLC