COLUMBIA--Lawyers will work for free to help prosecute criminal domestic violence cases under a new program by state Attorney General Henry McMaster.

Both criminal and civil lawyers will volunteer their time and be trained by judges, support groups and prosecutors, McMaster said Thursday.

National experts have rated South Carolina as one of the worst states in the country for fighting domestic violence.

Criminal domestic violence charges are often misdemeanors tried in magistrate's court. Defendants can retain lawyers, but most of the time the cases are prosecuted by the police officer who investigated the case instead of a trained lawyer. That leaves the state without representation, leading to dropped charges and fewer convictions, McMaster said.

The attorney general was unsure how much it should cost to give the lawyers the 20 hours of training needed to try cases, but said it "wouldn't be that much."

At least 30 volunteers have signed up for the program, which is scheduled to begin by November in Orangeburg and Kershaw counties. McMaster said he is close to hiring a program coordinator and eventually wants the program to run statewide.

McMaster got the idea for his first major initiative since taking office in January by meeting with judges, victim advocates, counselors, police officers and Chief Justice Jean Toal, who called the program "a dream come true."

It is important to focus on preventing domestic violence and punishing offenders early, Toal said. "I've been hearing death penalty cases for 15 years now as a member of the Supreme Court and (in) all but two of them the defendants were much involved in domestic violence from the time they were children," she said.

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a victims' advocate for 25 years, recently ran into the problem of police officers trying cases when she was a juror in a criminal domestic violence case.

The defendant was convicted on just one of three charges. "The cop did the best he could, but he's not an attorney," said Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg.

McMaster applauded his predecessor Charlie Condon for his work to curb domestic violence. Condon ordered prosecutors to stop dropping criminal domestic violence cases. McMaster is continuing that policy. "It's time now to move to the next step and I understand that the only way to attack a problem of this magnitude is to have a team of people working together," McMaster said.