This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for criminal defense in South Carolina, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a criminal defense in South Carolina costs on average $8,700, typically $4,350-$13,000 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $160 to $320 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 3-6 months to resolve.
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $1,750 | $3,000 | $4,300 | 1-3 months |
| Moderate | $4,350 | $8,700 | $13,000 | 3-6 months |
| Complex | $11,550 | $23,100 | $38,500 | 6-12+ months |
Last verified: June 2026
$160 – $320/ hour
Median: $240/hr
3-6 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Criminal defense costs form primarily around charge severity and how the case resolves. A misdemeanor that ends in a straightforward plea negotiation is the least expensive scenario and is often billed as a flat fee, since the attorney can reasonably predict the hours involved. A felony charge, multiple counts, or a case that proceeds to trial multiplies the work substantially — pretrial motions, evidence review, witness preparation, and the trial itself — which is why most complex criminal defense engagements move to hourly billing or a large retainer with hourly drawdown.
Court-appointed public defenders are available at no direct cost to defendants who qualify financially, which is why the figures on this page reflect private attorney costs specifically. Private representation typically offers more attorney time per case and can be worth it for serious charges, but the actual price a defendant pays scales directly with case complexity and whether the matter is resolved pretrial or goes to trial.
Take a moderate-complexity criminal defense matter in South Carolina. The recorded median total is $8,700, with reported quotes clustering between $4,350 and $13,000. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,600–$7,300, which leaves roughly $1,400–$7,100 of the South Carolina median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. One further recorded fee is not itemised above and is not in that total.
At $8,700, the median criminal defense cost in South Carolina runs 12% below the $9,905 national average across all 50 states and DC.
South Carolina carries 3 rows — simple, $1,750–$4,300 at $120–$240/hr over 1-3 months; moderate, $4,350–$13,000 at $160–$320/hr over 3-6 months; complex, $11,550–$38,500 at $240–$400/hr over 6-12+ months — on 3 shared citations. They put it below the midpoint of the table without reaching the bottom quarter.
$8,700 is a median, not the middle of the band — $4,350 above the $4,350 floor, $4,300 under the $13,000 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 51.
South Carolina occupies the 35th row of 51 for a criminal defense. Its $8,700 median trails the $10,200 table midpoint by $1,500, which is 15% — close enough that a single firm's quote can straddle both figures.
Missouri ($8,950) and Iowa ($8,650) bracket South Carolina inside a $300 window — narrow enough that 35th is close to arbitrary.
6 tracked states — Missouri, Iowa, North Carolina, Montana among them — record a median within three percent of South Carolina's $8,700. The figure sits in the densest part of the criminal defense distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
The total is doing something the rate does not explain. South Carolina sits 45th of 51 on rate at $240 an hour but 35th on total criminal defense cost, 10 places higher — a signal that recorded matters here run long rather than dear.
| Rank | State | Median | Against South Carolina |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | Wyoming | $9,450 | +$750 |
| 30 | Indiana | $9,250 | +$550 |
| 31 | Florida | $9,200 | +$500 |
| 32 | Ohio | $9,050 | +$350 |
| 33 | West Virginia | $9,000 | +$300 |
| 34 | Missouri | $8,950 | +$250 |
| 35 | South Carolina | $8,700 | — |
| 36 | Iowa | $8,650 | −$50 |
| 37 | North Carolina | $8,600 | −$100 |
| 38 | Montana | $8,550 | −$150 |
| 39 | North Dakota | $8,550 | −$150 |
| 40 | Tennessee | $8,500 | −$200 |
| 41 | Louisiana | $8,250 | −$450 |
The rows within ten percent are lopsided: 10 below South Carolina against 6 above. $250 up or $50 down moves South Carolina a row, so a downward revision would cost the state far more places than an equivalent upward one would gain — the 35th position is propped up by a thin criminal defense field above it and a crowded one beneath.
Climbing five places would mean passing Indiana, Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri and adding $550 to the $8,700 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under Iowa, North Carolina, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee: $200.
$4,650 short of Hawaii ($13,350), $2,100 clear of Alabama ($6,600).
The $8,700 median divided by the $240 median rate implies roughly 36 billable hours. The peer median is 34 hours, so 2 more hours of work sit behind the South Carolina figure than behind the typical state's.
South Carolina records a 7.7x gap between its simple and complex criminal defense medians. Decomposed, that is 4.2x more billed time and 1.78x a higher rate: 17 hours at $180 becomes 72 hours at $320.
The South Carolina moderate band spans $4,350 to $13,000 — $8,650 — which is $1,550 narrower than the peer-median band of $10,200, so quoted criminal defense figures cluster more tightly here than in most tracked states. End to end that is 36 hours at $240.
Across the 3-6 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $8,700 median is roughly $1,933 a month of elapsed time.
A third ordering: by implied hours South Carolina is 3rd of 51 at 36 hours, 32 places above its cost rank of 35th on cost — more work behind the same criminal defense money.
68% up the $4,350–$13,000 band sits the $10,200 table midpoint, buying 43 hours at $240 against the 36 the local criminal defense median implies — 7 hours apart.
| Measure | South Carolina | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $8,700 | 35th |
| Hourly median | $240 | 45th |
| Implied hours | 36 | 3rd |
| Simple median | $3,000 | 41st |
| Complex median | $23,100 | 46th |
$240 an hour puts South Carolina between New Mexico ($240) and South Dakota ($240) — not the criminal defense cost pairing.
New Mexico, South Dakota record the same $240: rate cannot separate them, totals do.
$8,700 buys 48 hours at $180, 36 at $240, 27 at $320.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 43 | West Virginia | $250 |
| 44 | New Mexico | $240 |
| 45 | South Carolina | $240 |
| 46 | South Dakota | $240 |
| 47 | Louisiana | $235 |
Ranked tier by tier, South Carolina slides 5 places downward: 41st at the simple tier, 35th at moderate, 46th at complex. Its headline moderate position sits between the two extremes rather than summarising them.
$3,000 is 41st of 51 on a straightforward criminal defense, under New Mexico ($3,050) and over West Virginia ($3,000), $400 under the $3,400 tier midpoint.
$23,100 is 46th of 51 once contested, between North Carolina ($23,300) and Kansas ($22,550), $6,800 off the $29,900 tier midpoint.
$50 separates the simple ceiling of $4,300 from the moderate floor of $4,350, so the first escalation is a clean break, while the moderate and complex bands overlap from $11,550 upward. The expensive end of a routine criminal defense and the cheap end of a contested one are the same money in South Carolina.
| Tier | South Carolina | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $3,000 | 41st | $3,400 | 17 |
| moderate | $8,700 | 35th | $10,200 | 36 |
| complex | $23,100 | 46th | $29,900 | 72 |
$3,000 drops South Carolina to 41st of 51 on straightforward matters, 6 below its moderate position and $400 (12%) under the $3,400 tier midpoint.
17 implied hours at $180: 47% of the moderate tier's 36, over 1-3 months.
New Mexico ($3,050) and West Virginia ($3,000) bracket it — a $50 window.
5 states sit within three percent of the $3,000 here, against 6 at the moderate row.
$23,100 drops South Carolina to 46th of 51 on contested matters, 11 below its moderate position and $6,800 (23%) under the $29,900 tier midpoint.
72 implied hours at $320: 200% of the moderate tier's 36, over 6-12+ months.
North Carolina ($23,300) and Kansas ($22,550) bracket it — a $750 window.
6 states sit within three percent of the $23,100 here, against 6 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 39 | Montana | $3,050 |
| 40 | New Mexico | $3,050 |
| 41 | South Carolina | $3,000 |
| 42 | West Virginia | $3,000 |
| 43 | Nebraska | $2,950 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 44 | West Virginia | $23,550 |
| 45 | North Carolina | $23,300 |
| 46 | South Carolina | $23,100 |
| 47 | Kansas | $22,550 |
| 48 | New Mexico | $21,900 |
Against the other matter types tracked in South Carolina, a criminal defense carries the largest median of the 8 at $8,700 — ahead of Divorce, the next line down.
The state does not rank uniformly. South Carolina is 35th of 51 for Criminal Defense but 51st for DUI / DWI, a 16-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 35th on criminal defense says little about what the other lines cost.
South Carolina is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, Criminal Defense runs 15% below its own midpoint while Estate Planning / Probate runs 28% below its own midpoint — a 13-point spread between the extremes.
South Carolina's practice areas fan out more than most: its largest tracked median is 5.8x its smallest, against 5.1x for the typical state. Prices here are set matter by matter rather than by one statewide level.
All 7 tracked matter types place South Carolina in the lower third of their tables, the criminal defense figure included.
In percentile terms it sits at the 32th percentile of the 51 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,000 | $8,700 | $23,100 | 36 | 35th | −15% | Missouri |
| Divorce | $2,500 | $6,450 | $18,600 | 27 | 50th | −25% | Arkansas |
| DUI / DWI | $2,550 | $5,550 | $13,050 | 25 | 51st | −26% | Oklahoma |
| Immigration | $1,500 | $4,000 | $8,250 | 18 | 41st | −16% | Arkansas |
| Personal Injury | $1,200 | $3,850 | $12,200 | — | — | −26% | — |
| Bankruptcy | $1,100 | $3,050 | $4,250 | 15 | 36th | −15% | North Dakota |
| Real Estate Closing | $850 | $1,800 | $3,900 | 9 | 37th | −19% | North Carolina |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $450 | $1,500 | $4,550 | 7 | 44th | −28% | Oklahoma |
Simple tier. $3,000 ÷ $180 = about 17 hours, spread over 1-3 months at roughly $1,500 a month. The $5,700 step to the moderate tier is 19 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $8,700 to $23,100 is a $14,400 step, mostly work: 36 more hours at $240 is $8,640, while moving to $320 across 72 hours adds $5,760. Work carries 60%.
Borrowing the wrong row. Iowa ($8,650) is $50 light, Missouri ($8,950) is $250 heavy — but the $10,200 table midpoint is out by $1,500, 6x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $4,350 is 18 hours at $240; $13,000 is 54. Over the 3-6 months recorded for a moderate criminal defense, that is 4 to 12 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At South Carolina's own recorded figures, $23,100 buys 7.7 matters at the $3,000 simple median — or, counted in time, 72 implied hours against 17, a factor of 4.2 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the South Carolinacourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.