Cherie K. Dibbell Durand is the managing partner and trial lawyer with Hulsey Law Group, LLC in Charleston, South Carolina. Ms. Durand is fluent in Spanish, and has traveled extensively with a special interest in and appreciation of Latin America, particularly Puerto Rico. She is a 1990 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and is admitted by examination to the bars of Virginia (1990), South Carolina (2008) and the United States District Court of the District of Puerto Rico (1996).

Ms. Durand is also a graduate of Dartmouth College (A.B.,1985), where she majored in history with a focus on Spanish, Russian and U.S. foreign policy. She completed a semester’s course of study in Spanish, history, art history and political science at the University of Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain (1984). During college, Ms. Durand spent time living and working in Guayaquil, Ecuador as an elementary school teacher and translator for Interplast, a charity medical group. After college, she returned to Ecuador to work again as a translator for Interplast, and as a translator for Diane Sawyer and CBS 60 Minutes. Upon her return to the United States, she elected to pursue a career in law.

Ms. Durand has over 17 years of litigation experience serving as trial counsel for both the defense and plaintiffs in complex civil litigation, medical malpractice, civil RICO and other commercial litigation, much of it dedicated to litigation in Puerto Rico. She has participated in a variety of cases from state entity tobacco civil RICO actions on behalf of Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Hawaii and Washington state, to personal injury, class action matters, as well as developing foreign cases against Ford and Firestone to be tried in the United States, including cases from Venezuela and Mexico.

Ms. Durand came to South Carolina from San Juan, Puerto Rico where she had worked as the primary local counsel in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Attorney General action against the tobacco industry, Rossello v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. et al. In addition to taking on the case against the tobacco industry, she practiced law for over 2 years in Puerto Rico, specializing in civil rights litigation, employment discrimination, product liability litigation, medical malpractice, personal injury, appellate practice before the First Circuit, and other commercial litigation. Prior to living and working in Puerto Rico, she practiced as a litigator in northern Virginia and in the District of Columbia, focusing primarily on medical malpractice and health care litigation.

Ms. Durand now has primary responsibility for the development and management of the firm’s international practice, as well as day-to-day responsibility for the firm's federal litigation. She focuses upon civil RICO, class actions, resort torts, international litigation and health care fraud. She handles cases and trials in jurisdictions around the nation, as well as actively practicing in South Carolina. Ms. Durand is married to Pedro J. Durand.

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