Russell Pate lives and practices on Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He is a strong advocate for the United States to stop treating Americans in the U.S. Territories as second-class citizens. The Virgin Islands is one of 6 places under the U.S. flag where U.S. Citizens have no vote in Congress. Russell believes the right to vote is wrongfully denied to Americans in the Territories, even though the Territories have the highest participation per capita in the U.S. military and have served in foreign wars fighting for the Freedom of other from WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq – only to have Democracy denied to them back at Home. 

Russell handles asbestosis and cancer cases of former workers and their families with take-home exposure against what was the Western hemisphere’s largest oil refinery, and the companies failure to follow the 1971 OSHA safety guidelines for nearly two decades, needlessly exposing thousands of workers and their families to asbestos. Russell also handles cigarette smoking cancer and disease claims against tobacco companies for what was a 50 year multi-billion dollar conspiracy to deceive the American public and U.S. Government. You may remember being able to smoke on airplanes, buses, movie theaters and in restaurants. That was all courtesy of tobacco companies buying-off scientists to intentionally deceive the American public, which needlessly endangered generations of American families, from children to grand-parents. 

Russell earned his law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law.  He then earned a masters-of-law from California Western School of Law in San Diego in the area of trial advocacy. Russell started his legal career working for a large plaintiff’s law firm helping people around the world who had developed cancer from exposure to asbestos and other toxic substances. Next, he worked with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Texas practicing criminal defense in the federal courts of the United States. Before opening his own law firm he worked for an insurance defense firm on St. Thomas. 

He is admitted to practice law in the Virgin Islands, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, and in the federal courts of the District Court of the Virgin Islands, the District Court of Puerto Rico, the Northern District of Texas, the Southern District of Florida, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. Russell was voted Best Lawyer in 2011, 2012, 2018 and 2019 by the readers of the Virgin Islands Daily News.  He has served on the Virgin Islands Bar Association’s Board of Governors from 2012-2017 and was President of the Virgin Islands Bar Association in 2016.

Outside of law, you will find him paddle-boarding, surfing, and growing plants and trees to make the perfect cup of Caribbean bush tea.