News

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As the son of teachers, getting a quality education was a primary focus of Marc Williams’s life.

A degree from WVU Law helped prepare Williams for a successful legal career, and scholarships helped him fund his education. Now, the 1985 graduate has pledged $50,000 to help WVU Law students offset the cost of their legal education.  

The Marc E. Williams Endowed Law Scholarship will be awarded to students who are graduates of Marshall University or residents of Cabell or Wayne Counties in West Virginia. Williams earned his bachelor’s degree from Marshall.

Based in Huntington, Williams is the managing partner of the West Virginia office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP. He serves as team leader and co-chair of the firm’s consumer and mechanical products practice group.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA —  Across the country, special commissions remove barriers to justice for low-income and disadvantaged people by working with courts, the bar, and legal aid organizations.

WVU Law is now home to the state’s Access to Justice Commission.  Only two commissions in the country are administered by law schools.

“The Access to Justice Commission is central to fulfilling our mission as a law school to serve the region and make a national impact through our programming and service,” said Gregory Bowman, dean of the College of Law.

The West Virginia Supreme Court founded the state’s Access to Justice Commission in 2009 and transferred it to the College of Law last year. The commission recently hired a new director and has restructured its governance to include law professors, attorneys, government officials and legal aid providers. The West Virginia State Bar awarded a $75,000 grant to support the commission’s work and its transition to WVU Law.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. —Tom Hansell of Appalachian State University will discuss  After Coal: Stories of Survival in Appalachia and Wales on Jan. 28 from 4:00-5:30 p.m. in the Event Hall at WVU Law. 

Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

Hansell will be joined by panelists Caity Coyne of the Charleston Gazette-Mail and Nicholas Stump of the George R. Farmer Jr. Law Library at WVU. Ashton Marra of WVU’s Reed College of Media and 100 Days in Appalachia will moderate this conversation about how communities and cultures survive after coal.

The discussion is sponsored by the WVU Humanities Center, the Appalachian Justice Initiative at WVU Law, Reed College of Media, and West Virginia University Press.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU Law and Marshall University have established a one-of-its-kind Center for Consumer Law and Education to build advocacy for those in West Virginia and beyond.

The universities officially launched the CCLE at special events on their campuses Nov. 28 and 29.

CCLE’s mission is to serve as a principal consumer, law, policy, education and support resource in West Virginia and nationally. It is the only center of its kind on the East Coast and the only one that is a collaboration between two universities.

“I am proud that our university has partnered with Marshall University and many others in the state to help West Virginia move forward and to help our consumers be protected,” said Gordon Gee , President of West Virginia University. “We have an opportunity to improve the lives of West Virginians. This is about education, but it is also about advocacy. It is about making certain we continue to make progress in this state.”

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA — The Delaware Court of Chancery has cited WVU Law professor Joshua Weishart in an education rights case.

In Delawarians for Educational Opportunity v. Carney, the court ruled that the state constitution “obligates the state of Delaware to create and maintain a system of public schools that successfully educates Delaware’s students.”

In support of its decision to deny a motion to dismiss the case, the court cites two of Weishart's law review articles:

“It is not possible to divorce a mandate to establish and maintain a system of public schools from the expectation that the schools will educate the students who attend them.” See Joshua E. Weishart, Aligning Education Rights and Remedies, 27 Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 346, 360-61 (2018).

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA — WVU Law professor Shine Tu has contributed to a new book on U.S.copyright, patent, and trademark law.

“Fundamentals of United States Intellectual Property Law” (Wolters Kluwer, 2018) is a comprehensive review of U.S. copyright, patent, and trademark laws. The book offers extensive explanations of each primary statute while examining significant case law.

Tu wrote the patent law section of the book, encompassing seven chapters and covering materials from sources of United States patent law to patent design. His co-authors are Amanda Reid, a journalism and law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Kenneth Port, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

This is the revised and updated sixth edition of “Fundamentals of United States Intellectual Property Law."

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA — The 2018 National Energy Conference at WVU Law on Dec. 1 will focus on climate change.

Admission is free and the public is invited to attend. Online registration at energy.law.wvu.edu/nec18 is required for the lunch/keynote speaker.

Topics to be discussed at the conference include the latest developments in climate change issues, climate change communication, controlling methane emissions, putting a price on carbon, and solar energy opportunities and obstacles. The speakers are national and regional experts from industry, public policy organizations, environmental groups, and academia.

Emily Calandrelli, an Emmy-nominated science TV host, will deliver the keynote speech. She is a correspondent on “Bill Nye Saves the World” on Netflix and an executive producer and host of FOX's “Xploration Outer Space.” Calandrelli is a 2010 WVU graduate.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA — A case being handled by a clinic at WVU Law will be argued in the Supreme Court of the United States on Dec. 3.

WVU Law students in the U.S. Supreme Court Clinic have been preparing for Dawson v. Steager, a tax discrimination case, for 18 months. They conducted much of the required research, analysis and writing for the case under the leadership of Lawrence Rosenberg, a partner with Jones Day in Washington, DC, and Anne Marie Lofaso, professor of law.

Rosenberg will argue the case before the Supreme Court. He and Lofasso founded the U.S. Supreme Court Clinic at WVU in 2011.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA —  A new book co-edited by WVU Law professor Valena Beety sheds light on wrongful convictions in the U.S. justice system.

“The Wrongful Convictions Reader” (Carolina Academic Press, 2018) includes articles of leading research, law, and policy analysis gathered by Beety and Georgia State law professor Russell D. Covey.

Topics include eyewitness misidentification, false confession, DNA, junk science, prosecutorial misconduct and post-conviction review.

Acclaimed trial lawyer Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, wrote the book’s introduction.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA - WVU Law's public interest law program and its graduates' employment rate have been nationally recognized by preLaw Magazine.

PreLaw has named WVU Law among “the best schools for doing good,” giving the college a grade of A in public interest law. Lawyers who practice public interest law help the underrepresented or those who cannot afford legal services. This summer, for example, 22 WVU Law students worked in the state’s public interest agencies, including Legal Aid of West Virginia and Mountain State Justice.

  WVU Law was also among preLaw’s “highest performers” in the nation for employment outcomes, earning the number 16 spot on the magazine’s Employment Honor Roll. WVU Law’s employment rate is consistently higher than the national average. For the Class of 2017, the employment rate was 82 percent for bar passage required and J.D. advantage jobs — the gold standard for law schools. The national average for the Class of 2017 was 75.3 percent.

“WVU Law is committed to excellence in public service and career placement, which is why we maintain comprehensive and robust programs for our students,” said Gregory Bowman, dean of the College of Law. “This means our students excel in these areas, and it also means that we provide vital, much-needed service to our state and region.”