A Butler County native son is now serving as General Counsel to a member of the President’s Cabinet.  Georgiana native Paul Compton of Mountain Brook, a partner in the Birmingham law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, was nominated by President Trump last May and confirmed in December to serve as counsel to Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (HUD).

While Compton’s mother Pat, who still resides in Georgiana, was not able to attend her son’s swearing in on January 5 by Dr. Carson, his wife Dana and three adult children Catherine, Jerome and Anne were all able to attend the event in Washington.

“I was so excited that his family could be there for that special day. Paul told me that the wheels of government tend to grind slowly, so he told me not to mention anything until it was all said and done,” explains Pat Compton. “Naturally, as a mom, I am very proud of him and what he’s accomplished. And he really got his start with the law and how the government works here in Butler County.”

Compton, a Georgiana native who attended both South Butler Academy and Fort Dale-South Butler Academy, completed his senior year of high school as an honor student at Marion Military Institute. During his summer breaks from his high school studies, the teenager got valuable experience clerking for Representative Eric Cates.

As a college student at the University of Alabama from which he graduated summa cum laude, Compton spent his summers interning with Senator Howell Heflin and Representative Bill Dickinson.  While attending UA, he was named the College of Commerce’s Outstanding Student in 1985 and also had the opportunity to attend the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Compton went on to the University of Virginia School of Law, joining his Birmingham law firm upon graduation.

Since that time, he has been involved in advising clients concerning loans and investments by banks and other financial institutions in affordable housing and community development projects, and with respect to consumer lending.

He is also outside General Counsel to the Alabama Affordable Housing Association and a member, and former state chairman, of the American Bar Association Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development.

During his law career, Compton has been involved in hundreds of transactions, including over 50 acquisitions and sales of depository institutions; over 200 transactions involving low income housing tax credits (federal, Georgia and North Carolina) for equity investors, lenders, credit support providers and developers, including more than 40 involving private activity bond financed developments and

over fifteen de novo formations of banks, bank holding companies and insurance companies.

Some of the accolades he has received during his career include Chambers USA, Banking and Finance, 2006-2010;

Best Lawyers in America, Banking Law, Corporate Law, Insurance Law, and Securities Law, 2001-2010; Business Alabama, “Alabama Super Lawyers,” 2008; Regional Finalist, White House Fellowship Program, Office of the President of the United States, 1996; Lawdragon 3000, 2007-2010 and Alabama Super Lawyers, Banking, 2009.