With over 25 years of providing legal services exclusively to the citizens of South Carolina, Joyce’s number one goal is to provide honest, purposeful, competent and confidential representation with a personal touch. Concentrating in Estate Planning and Probate, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, Entertainment and Collaborative Law, Joyce helps her clients resolve disputes and problems mutually and privately with direct client involvement while minimizing hostility. Joyce believes that respectful solutions are possible when you’re ready to think or try things differently.

A Spartanburg native and Columbia resident, Joyce opened the Law Office of Joyce Farr Cheeks, P.C. in 1993 in Columbia, S.C., where she continues to maintain a very active practice. Along the way, she has handled numerous cases that have netted her clients highly favorable outcomes. Her zealous client-centered advocacy is reflected in her high percentage of client referrals. In addition to her zealous client advocacy, Joyce serves as a civil court mediator and is a collaborative law proponent. Joyce began her legal career as General Counsel and Deputy Director of the South Carolina Children’s Foster Care Review Board. Two years later she accepted a staff attorney position at the South Carolina Court of Appeals, followed by a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Alexander M. Sanders, Jr., Chief Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals.

Joyce received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from South Carolina State University. She received both her Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A.) from the University of South Carolina in 1985. In addition to practicing law, Joyce has taught law related courses in the graduate business program at Webster University and at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, S.C., as well as high school and junior high school math and science.

Attorney Cheeks has served in numerous leadership capacities, including the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce; Board of Directors of South Carolina Communities in Schools; Board of Directors of the YMCA Black Achievers; and, Interim Executive Director of the South Carolina American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) during a critical period of transition for the organization.

Joyce has always been passionate and committed to serving her clients. Over the years, she began to notice that her clients’ needed more than mere guidance on legal matters. Oftentimes, she found herself coaching and advising them on life’s challenges, such as transitioning out of a marriage with the least amount of conflict or how to resolve family and estate disputes, and even helping a veteran to understand the benefits due to him/her. Joyce knew there was more she could do to help her clients move their lives forward beyond just legal representation. She recognized that it was time to expand her work to better serve and support her clients and her community. That’s exactly what she did.

In 2013, Joyce completed an intensive nine month professional coach training program at the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching and later launched her Personal Freedom Coaching Practice, where she helps her clients create better choices and design the life they truly want. In addition to becoming a certified life coach, Joyce became certified as a Fatherless Daughter Advocate and trained in the groundbreaking work, The Journey to Being™ where she helps fatherless women and girls reconcile their daddy issues…a topic near and dear to Joyce’s heart due to the fact that she too is a fatherless daughter.

On any given day, you can find Attorney Joyce Cheeks in the office of her thriving law firm or in the court room representing a client. But on other days, you may find her in front of an audience sharing her strategies for preserving family legacies, coaching organizations’ leaders on conflict resolution or simply doing a radio/tv interview about the negative impact that fatherlessness has on a female’s life and our community. Whatever Joyce Cheeks is doing, you can be sure it’s to help elevate her clients and her community.