Advocating for cyclists

Peter Wilborn never envisioned his law career veering toward personal injury, though it’s a far cry from the advertisements seen on television.

The Richmond, Va., native came to Charleston in 1996 to work for Armand Derfner, a longtime attorney focused on civil rights and labor issues, which intrigued Wilborn and still does. But the roots of his career shifted on Sept. 28, 1998.

Wilborn’s younger brother, Jim, an adventurous, athletic young man, was riding his bike to work in Casper, Wyo., when an underage driver ran a stop light and killed him.

“My brother was an exquisitely fit, cool guy,” says Wilborn.

“He was an athlete who also was interested in farming, being a craftsman. He was the full package of a guy.”

As with any tragedy of the sort, Wilborn and his close-knit family

were crushed. Having been in the law field for six years, Wilborn looked into the matter from a legal standpoint.

“I called around and found the (driver’s) lawyer. I met the guy and he was incredibly disrespectful because (he said) my brother was on a bicycle,” says Wilborn. “From that point forward, it was just in my mind to start doing something about that. To start being a cyclist who represented cyclists.”

Birth of Bike Law

But his evolution into an attorney representing cyclists hurt in accidents or the families of those who are killed didn’t happen overnight.

“I never thought of myself becoming a personal injury lawyer,” says Wilborn. “After my brother’s death, I did a case or two a couple of years later, then I did a couple of more. Every year, I’ve done more and more bike cases to the point where it’s taken over the majority of my practice.”

Wilborn, who remains a partner in Derfner, Altman & Wilborn, formed S.C. Bike Law, which has since changed to Bike Law, and now about 75 percent of his caseload pertains to bicycle accidents. He also maintains the website and writes a blog on www.bikelaw.com.

When he takes on a new case, he is motivated not only by his brother but by many of the victims and their families, including those of the late Edwin Gardner and Dr. Matt Burke. Both men died of injuries related to being struck by cars in separate 2010 accidents.

“I’ve handled other families who have lost brothers and sons and daughters and fathers (and) I think about all of them. … It’s hard to assign value to tragedy, or to what are called accidents, but I think there is a value to those people’s lives.”

Wilborn is considered a key ally as both a lawyer and an advocate by those who want to make bicycling safer and more accepted, not only in Charleston but in the Southeast and nationwide.

Smartest guy in room

Donald Sparks, a longtime local bike and pedestrian advocate with Charleston Moves, says Wilborn has given countless hours in promoting safe cycling locally and nationally.

“I’ve worked with dozens of bicycle advocates from across the country and none match Peter’s enthusiasm and competence,” says Sparks, adding that Wilborn is “always the smartest guy in the room” and that his support for alternative transportation is unparalleled.

“I have watched Peter in action countless times and am always impressed by the way he can take command of a situation and turn it around,” says Sparks. “Peter has the energy and enthusiasm of a 10-year-old, coupled with a mature worldview that allows him to make incredible contributions not only to his clients but to our community.”

Law partner and mentor Derfner has known Wilborn longer than anyone else in Charleston and says Wilborn’s energy, initiative and integrity are “striking.”

“He can get things done that nobody can get done. I just marvel sometimes. He does it often in a lightning way. It’s been great for me because I tend to think about something forever and a day. And Peter just goes ahead and gets it done and gets it done right.”

Coming to Charleston

After graduating from law school, Wilborn spent three years working for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was able to quench his youthful thirst for world travel.

His job of administering legal training programs for judges and lawyers in developing countries and going on fact-finding missions took him to nearly all the countries of the Middle East, as well as Western and Northern Africa.

But the call to practice law caught up to him. He came back to the United States in 1996 to interview at large firms in Washington, D.C., and New York, but it was an advertisement in a University of Michigan Law School periodical for a job with Derfner in Charleston that caught his eye.

“I walked up the rickety stairs at 171 Church St. and came into Armand’s massive office with papers and folders and everything piled to the ceiling. And I fell madly in love with him. He wasn’t looking for a protege, but I was looking for a mentor and I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” says Wilborn.

“When you interview in these law firms in big cities, you go into a room and listen to someone about how great they are, how important a lawyer they are. I met with Armand, who in my estimation is truly an important lawyer, and he talked about his dad and his life. I felt like this is a special guy.”

The family man

Dads, mothers, siblings and children, after all, are very important to Wilborn.

Growing up on the Virginia side of Washington, D.C., Wilborn and his two brothers, Burke and Jim, lived in the “Kool-Aid house,” the one where all their friends came over to play and hang out.

“There were always kids and friends and neighbors in and out of the house. I’ve had a difficult time adjusting to modern parenting with play dates and ‘Let’s do dinner seven weeks from now.’ At my house, the door was always open. … It was a really fun, vibrant, social childhood.”

The way Wilborn talks about his family — father David, mother Belinda, brothers and close friends — was a big reason his wife, Caprice “Cappy” Pate Wilborn, fell in love with him in the first place.

“I knew that if he could love his family that much, he could love me that much, too,” says Cappy, the mother of their two children, Jim, 10, and David, 8.

Wilborn and Cappy met in September 1996. He had just moved here and she was living on Society Street. She came out to her car and found Wilborn looking at the hubcaps of her 1984 Volvo. He joked that he wondered how her hubcaps would look on his 1985 Volvo, then got in his car and drove off.

The two met again the following summer on Sullivan’s Island, started dating and quickly became close, bound by a common view of the world.

“We had some of the most amazing conversations. I remember talking about the power of one and that one person can make a difference,” says Cappy, who herself has dedicated her career to helping nonprofits, such as the Komen Foundation and the South Carolina Aquarium, raise money.

The two married Nov. 4, 2000, and both have shared passions for their families, travel and cycling.

As a family and individually, the Wilborns bike daily and stress safety for their boys.

She says, “We tell them that they can do everything right, by the book, but that they still have to look out for danger.”

Wilborn says that while Charleston, as well as the nation, has suffered setbacks recently for making cycling safer, he doesn’t see the effort going away.

“Every predictor I see of cycling is that it’s going great. We’re going to have bumps in the road. … But the trend is that cycling’s time has come and that it ain’t going anywhere, and that’s cause for celebration.”

Reach David Quick at 937-5516.