When Thomas Hydrick ‘17 first started classes at Vanderbilt Law School, he was interested in public policy and constitutional law, but he had no idea that it would one day lead him to his eventual dream job: becoming the Solicitor General for his home state of South Carolina. At the time, South Carolina’s Solicitor General office was still in its infancy, and many other states still lumped it underneath the greater Attorney General’s office.

“There are not a lot of places where you can practice constitutional law on a daily basis, but Solicitor General offices offer that opportunity,” he explained. “I didn’t know that was the exact place I wanted to end up, but through serendipity and good fortune I did end up here,” he added.

However, it took Thomas a few years to get there. After graduating from Vanderbilt Law, he started working at Baker Botts in Washington, D.C., primarily practicing antitrust law. The following year, he got an opportunity to clerk for the Honorable A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which brought him back to South Carolina.

After two “transformative” years of clerking, Thomas began practicing in Columbia, SC, at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, mostly doing appellate work. During that time, the state Solicitor General’s office got approval from the legislature to expand the team, and Thomas was hired by South Carolina’s Attorney General Alan Wilson as the Assistant Deputy Solicitor General.

He explains that state Solicitor General offices are “loosely modeled on the United States Solicitor General, tasked with defending the state’s interests in certain types of appellate litigation and handling any complex litigation that the office may be involved in around the country.” He adds that “regardless of the type of case, our overall focus remains the same, and that’s representing the interests of the state of South Carolina and trying to effectuate the Attorney General’s vision for the office.”

After three and half years as the Assistant Deputy Solicitor General, Thomas was named the state’s Solicitor General earlier this spring. While the division continues to be small relative to some other states, he says that “we’re doing a lot of important work, where we make a difference in people’s lives. In all of our cases, we do our best to diligently represent the state and its interests.”

Roughly eight years since graduating from Vanderbilt Law, Thomas says that he’s very happy with how his professional journey has gone so far. “It’s been a very fulfilling career, and truthfully, it’s the reason I went to law school, which not a lot of people get to say…. Nearly every day, I feel like I get to make a positive difference in my home state, and I am deeply grateful for that,” he said.

Thomas encourages law students and early career attorneys to explore public service opportunities, even if they aren’t sure they want to make a career out of it in the same way that he has. He says that public service law gave him experiences that he wouldn’t have had in the private sector, such as arguing at the state Supreme Court and at the Fourth Circuit.

“If I’d stayed in private practice, those opportunities would have been few and far between,” he said. “In the public sector, you get on your feet as a young attorney, and you actually get to lawyer. There are great opportunities in private practice, and that’s not to diminish that, but for young attorneys, I think government service is pretty unparalleled.”

Whether lawyers end up pursuing public or private sector careers, Thomas urges them to remember what an impact their work has on other people and keep that top of mind as they practice.

“It can be easy to think of the practice of law as a business, and although that can be true in certain contexts and environments, I think we should collectively recover the idea of the law as a profession. The law has a tremendous power to make a positive difference in people’s lives. Whether you’re representing one client or you’re representing lots of people in a state proceeding, it is always an honor to do so.”