News

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—The West Virginia University College of Law has earned top national recognition in two areas that prepare students for their careers.

PreLaw Magazine has given WVU Law a grade of A in practical training and environmental law.

For practical training, the magazine looked at WVU Law’s opportunities in clinics, externships, simulation courses, moot court participation and pro bono hours.

WVU Law’s environmental law grade is based on the college’s energy and environmental law curriculum, the Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic, the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development, externships and student groups.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—Three exceptional West Virginia University faculty members have been honored with the University’s 2020  Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching. This year’s honorees are: 

Vincent Paul Cardi, Bowles Rice Professor of Law, College of Law.  

Dawn Hunter, Associate Professor of Pathology, Anatomy and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine.

Scott A. Myers, Professor and Peggy Rardin McConnell Endowed Teaching Chair of Communication Studies, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A First Amendment expert with extensive administrative experience at West Virginia University will guide the College of Law as interim dean, an appointment that will likely encompass the next academic year. 

Jackson Kelly Professor John E. Taylor will step into the role on July 1, upon the departure of Gregory Bowman who was recently named dean of the Roger Williams University School of Law. 

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed made the announcement Monday (April 13). 

“While we are sad to see Greg Bowman leave the University after his long tenure here, we wish him well in his new endeavor,” Reed said. “We are confident that that Professor Taylor, a well-respected faculty member and administrator, will bring a steady hand to his leadership role and help propel the law school the forward.” 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—When Lawrence Brown returned stateside from the Vietnam War, the combat veteran from Pursglove, West Virginia, was overwhelmed by the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Rooted in that daily struggle, Brown was absent from the U.S. Army without leave on a couple of occasions, ultimately leading to a less than honorable discharge.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An asylum seeker from Ghana who said he was attacked by a mob led by his father because of his sexuality has shown a valid fear of persecution, a U.S. appeals court said in a case argued by two law students.

The petitioner, a gay man in his late 20s from Accra, said he had a secret relationship with a friend from his Muslim school days when his father found out in 2016 and flew into a rage. He said he was beaten, doused with kerosene and threatened with being beheaded before escaping, naked and bleeding.

He later made his way to the U.S., where immigration judges rejected his case, in part because it involved only a single attack. The initial judge suggested he could avoid further prosecution back home if he kept his sexuality a secret, according to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Same-sex male relationships are misdemeanors in Ghana and can bring up to three years in prison, the ruling said. The Associated Press is not naming the petitioner at the request of his lawyer, Adrian Roe of Pittsburgh, who fears for his client’s safety if he is deported and hopes to have his name redacted from court records.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—A West Virginia native has come home to serve as the new Energy Fellow in the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at the West Virginia University College of Law.

Attorney Tim Cronin, originally from Buckhannon, West Virginia, has spent the past five years working with renewable energy developers to build projects that have delivered affordable energy and job opportunities to communities across the United States. He is on leave from the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he is a member of the energy and infrastructure practice group.

“We are fortunate to have Tim join us,” said Jamie Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development. “He is a talented and experienced energy lawyer with a national firm, and yet he saw an opportunity to come back to West Virginia to do good during a time of great transition for the state.”

As WVU Law’s Energy Fellow, Cronin is researching and promoting opportunities that West Virginia has to create jobs and expand businesses amid the push by public and private sector leaders to reduce emissions across the economy.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—It was a dream job for Hannah Steketee. The WVU Law 3L had earned a prestigious clerkship at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Then, just two weeks after she arrived, COVID-19 forced the ECJ to close indefinitely. Now, Steketee is back home in Morgantown, West Virginia—but her trip was not in vain.

“I was able to do some really cool work,” Steketee said. “I learned so much!”

Steketee was assigned to clerk for Romanian judge Octavia Spinaeu-Matei. In her short time working for Judge Spinaeu-Matei, Steketee conducted legal research on the recusal laws of ECJ member states. She also worked on a European Union harmonized standards case and a case involving EU trademark law.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. —  West Virginia University and its divisional campuses in Keyser and  Beckley will extend alternative delivery of classes through the rest of the semester in response to the continued threat of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Additionally, all employees – except for those needed to keep online operations running and a select few others – must work from home, and residence halls will remain shuttered.

“It is clear the pace of this pandemic will only continue to grow across the United States,”  President Gordon Gee said. “Our medical experts share that there is little chance of it slowing down – unless we quickly and accurately implement measures that can impede the community spread and ‘flatten the curve.’”

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Amanda Demmerle, a third-year student at West Virginia University College of Law, is a winner of the national Burton Distinguished Legal Writing Award for Law Schools.

Demmerle won for her article “Pain in the Ash: How Coal-Fired Power Plants are Polluting Our Nation’s Waters Without Consequences,” published in the December 2019 West Virginia Law Review (122 W. Va. L. Rev. 289). She is the second WVU Law student in three years to win a Burton award.

Just 15 law students from across the country are selected for the Burton Award. Demmerle and the other recipients will be honored at a black-tie dinner at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, in June.

In her article, known as a “Note,” Demmerle argues that the federal Clean Water Act is currently the best way to regulate water pollution caused by coal ash impoundments in the United States. She discusses options within the Clean Water Act, and each option’s likelihood of success, to hold coal ash impoundment operators liable and reduce water pollution.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.— The restrooms on the main floor at the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia are now fully accessible due to the efforts of the West Virginia Access to Justice Commission.

Based at the West Virginia University College of Law, the Access to Justice Commission is charged with increasing equality in the state’s justice system. This includes investigating the state’s courthouses for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which marks its 30th anniversary this year.

The restroom improvements at the West Virginia Supreme Court include adding grab bars and electronic door buttons and reconfiguring the facilities for wheelchairs.

Attorney Duane Ruggier, a member of the Access to Justice Commission, raised the issue with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission, requesting that the court’s restrooms be updated to ADA standards.