Tope Leyimu focuses her practice on helping people catastrophically hurt or killed as a result of corporate wrongdoing, occupational hazards and environmental negligence. Tope also represents government entities in complex litigation designed to protect public health and safety.
She is a part of the firm’s team representing dozens of governmental entities, including states, counties, cities, towns, and townships in litigation targeting the alleged deceptive marketing and over-distribution of highly addictive opioid drugs, a contended cause of the nationwide opioid crisis. She also has experience representing workers and their families in a number of occupational disease cases.
While a law student at the University of Virginia School of Law, Tope interned with the Legal Aid Justice Center of Charlottesville, Virginia, providing legal representation for low-income individuals and families in the areas of housing and employment law, and worked as a law clerk at a firm in Jacksonville, Florida, on wrongful death and personal injury cases. She also volunteered with the Virginia Innocence Project Student Group, a student legal research group, helping investigate and screen cases involving prisoners convicted of serious crimes who had cognizable claims of actual innocence. While at UVA, she served on the board of the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, as the President of Phi Alpha Delta, the Vice President of Communications of ABLE (Action for a Better Living Environment), and on the Policy Council for the Black Law Student Association.
Active in her community, Tope serves as the President of the Green Heart Project board, a volunteer-assisted service-learning organization that integrates school farms as outdoor classrooms and connects students to fresh locally-grown produce. As a Charleston Legal Access board member, she works to expand access to legal services and rights, and in 2021, she was appointed to the South Carolina Access to Justice Commission by Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty of the South Carolina Supreme Court. This commission was created by the court in recognition of the need to expand access to civil legal representation for people of low income and modest means. Tope previously served on the Board for the Charleston Habitat for Humanity as well as the board of Charleston HALOS, supporting and advocating for abused and neglected children and kinship caregivers.