Beginning in 1983 and continuing until his nomination to the district court, he was the president and partner with his own law firm (most recently known as Gergel, Nickles and Solomon) in Columbia.

[3] In 1994, Gergel was the attorney representing the South Carolina Education Association and public school teacher Maggi Smith Hall.

1994), upheld the lower court's decision that Mullins District 2 acted illegally in firing Hall for exercising free speech in criticizing her superintendent and school board for reckless spending.

[3] Gergel was the presiding judge on the trial of Dylann Roof, who was convicted of 33 federal charges relating to the 2015 Charleston church shooting.

Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) and, with Belinda Gergel, of In Pursuit of the Tree of Life: A History of the Early Jews of Columbia, South Carolina (1996).