Adams also served in the Vietnam War as an officer in the United States Army Ordnance Corps, earning a Bronze Star Medal.
[4] After returning from Vietnam, Adams worked as a lawyer and began his political career in 1971 when he helped form the Shandon Neighborhood Council and served as its inaugural vice-president.
[6] In 1989, Adams took on a major annexation project for the expansion of retail and commercial properties as means to expand Columbia's tax base.
In the following years, on various occasions, Lexington County took the City of Columbia to Supreme Court on the subject as state law governing annexations was unclear.
[10] Adams made drastically positive changes to the SCCID's existing central reporting system for statistical data in the delivery of indigent defense services.
The Chief Justice issued a Supreme Court Administrative Order that mandated all indigent defense attorneys to enter new cases into the CMS.