JD Journal » West Virginia

Obama Nominates Five U.S. Attorneys

sara — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:19:12 +0000

President Barack Obama named five nominees for U.S. Attorney in Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and New York on January 20.

Stephanie Finley was nominated for the Western District of Louisiana. She has been assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District since 1995. Donald Washington, the current U.S. attorney, stepped down this week to join Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevant, Carrere & Denegre.

R. Booth Goodwin was nominated for the Southern District of West Virginia. He has been assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District since 2001 and would succeed U.S. Attorney Charles T. Miller.

David Hale was nominated for the Western District of Kentucky. He has been with the firm Reed Weitkamp Schell & Vice since 1999. He previously was an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District. He would replace David Huber, who resigned in January 2009.

Kerry Harvey was nominated for the Eastern District of Kentucky. He has been the general counsel and acting inspector general of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services since 2008. Earlier he was a partner at Owen, Harvey and Carter.

Loretta Lynch was nominated for the Eastern District of New York. She served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District previously from 1999 to 2001 preceded by 9 year of service as an Assistant U.S. attorney. She is a partner at Hogan & Hartson.

Nelson Mullins Opening in West Virginia

joshua — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:45:34 +0000

Nelson Mullins, already the largest firm in South Carolina, is opening its 12th office this week in Huntington, West Virginia. Three prominent West Virgina litigators, Marc Williams, Robert Massie and Melissa Foster Bird, will be joining the firms as partners and kicking off the West Virginia office. Litigation represents a little over half of Nelson Mullins work.

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP is a large US law firm and lobbying group based in Columbia, South Carolina. The firm ranked 127th in profit per attorney on the 2007 AmLaw 200 survey.

Orrick Hiring Law Grads for Ops Center

Erik Even — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:10:17 +0000

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe is recruiting recent law school graduates for its Global Operations Center in Wheeling, West Virginia.

The positions are entry level Career Attorneys in the Emerging Companies Group.

In the beginning of March, Orrick laid off 100 associates and 200 staff.

The San Francisco-based firm, founded in 1863, has over 1,100 lawyers worldwide in 21 offices. The firm’s day-to-day administrative operations are centralized at the Global Operations Center.

The Pro Bono Project Announces Free Legal Services Day

Erik Even — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:04:30 +0000

The Pro Bono Project and Legal Aid of West Virginia has announced Free Legal Services Day on Saturday, March 21 for Morgan County residents. The Pro Bono Project helps coordinate private attorneys efforts to perform community-based work at no charge.

The attorneys will talk with area residents about any legal problem and give them advice on what steps to take. Each person will be given up to one half-hour to discuss their legal problems with the attorney. Legal Aid of West Virginia is a private, non-profit corporation providing free civil legal services to low-income persons.

The program uses a combination of staff and pro bono to address the needs of low-income persons in the state.

Supreme Court Upholds Domestic Violence Gun Ban

Erik Even — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:47:57 +0000

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court decided in favor of a law barring people convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning guns. In a 7-2 decision, the court said laws against battery do not need to specifically mention domestic violence to fall under the domestic violence gun ban. That ban was enacted in 1996.

The case centered around Randy Edwards Hayes, a West Virginia man who had previously been convicted of domestic violence. Thus his ownership of a gun lead to a federal felony indictment for gun possession.

“If the case had gone the other way, there are thousands of people who currently are prohibited from buying guns who would have been allowed to buy guns. Women in abusive situations would have been more at risk. Police officers responding to domestic violence calls would have been more at risk,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The two dissenting opinions in the case were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anton Scalia.