News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) today named Billie S. McConkey as vice president, human resources.

A practicing labor and employment attorney, McConkey, 44, has provided legal counsel to three different news companies over her 20-year career. Since 2006, she has served as special employment counsel to McClatchy, providing guidance on labor and employment issues. She begins her new role March 9 as the company’s top human resources executive and a member of McClatchy’s senior management team.

“Billie has a long history of working with our markets in the area of employee relations and has a deep understanding of our culture,” said McClatchy President and CEO Pat Talamantes. “Leaders both at corporate and in our markets have tremendous confidence in Billie’s judgment, resourcefulness and work ethic. I couldn’t be happier to have her lead our dedicated team of human resources professionals.”

Born and raised in Charleston, W.Va., McConkey earned a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University and her law degree from West Virginia University’s College of Law, where she graduated first in her class and was executive editor of the West Virginia Law Review. She moved to Arizona in 1995 to begin her legal career, working in private practice and specializing in employment issues.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA—A panel discussion at the West Virginia University College of Law will explore China’s climate change policy and how the world’s most populous country is connected to West Virginia by carbon emissions and global warming.

“Climate Change, China, and the West Virginia Connection” will be held in the College of Law event hall on Thursday, February 12, from 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

The panelists will be Sarah Forbes, senior associate and energy and China specialist with the World Resources Institute, and Jerry Fletcher, environmental and natural resources economics professor and director of WVU’s US-China Energy Center.

The discussion moderator will be Ben Gilmer, project manager with Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting firm based in Morgantown. Attorney Sam Petsonk, former energy policy staff member for the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, will also make remarks. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions.

The West Virginia University College of Law is using a $120,000 grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to help revitalize cities and towns in the state.

Awarded to the Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic, the grant is supporting a program called West Virginia Legal Education to Address Abandoned/Neglected Properties, or WV LEAP. Through the program, clinic attorneys and students will help communities deal with decaying, abandoned, or uninhabitable buildings.

According to Katherine Garvey, director of the LUSD Law Clinic, neglected properties can be difficult for municipalities to address because of a lack of clarity on applicable laws, problems locating property owners and legal complexities related to property titles.

With WV LEAP, Garvey hopes to provide state municipalities with the tools and strategies available to them through technical legal assistance.

During the spring and summer of 2015, the LUSD Law Clinic will compile data and conduct legal research that will be made available to municipal attorneys as a resource on specific steps communities can utilize to combat problems of abandoned or decaying properties.

Emphasis will also be placed on educational outreach initiatives. The WV LEAP team will conduct a Continuing Legal Education session for West Virginia attorneys on May 14 in Charleston.

Patrick McGinley, the Charles Haden II Professor of Law, recently participated in the annual “Legislative Lookahead” panel hosted by the West Virginia Press Association.

Each year, the event serves as a forum for panelists to inform journalists on key issues and events within the state that could affect the upcoming legislative session. 

McGinley, along with fellow panelists Tim Armistead, the incoming Speaker of the House of Delegates, and Don Smith, the Executive Director of the West Virginia Press Association, participated in a discussion on freedom of information act and other issues that may come before the legislature during the 2015 session. Rob Byers, Executive Editor of the Charleston Gazette, was the panel moderator. 

Other topics discussed at the event held in Charleston included municipal issues, gun rights, water quality, and Republican control of the state legislature.

The panel was organized by Dorothy Abernathy, Associated Press Mid-Atlantic Bureau Chief for Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, West Virginia. and Delaware, with assistance from Marshall University, Charleston Newspapers and the West Virginia Press Association.

-WVU-

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA—The West Virginia University College of Law is hosting an open house for prospective students from 9:00 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, January 24.

Registration for Experience WVU Law Day is free and includes lunch. It is open to anyone interested in earning a law degree, including high school students, college students, and second-career adults. The deadline for registration is Friday, January 16.

Experience WVU Law Day will focus on the law school application process, academic offerings, career options, and financial aid. Participants will also be able to sit in on a mock class and tour the College of Law, which recently opened a 30,000 square foot addition.

“We want to introduce prospective students to the College of Law and answer their questions,” said Tina Jernigan, director of admissions. “This is a good opportunity to get a glimpse of what law school is really like.”

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA—Within the panelled walls of the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom at the West Virginia University College of Law, students learn from experienced professors and legal scholars deliver insightful lectures.

In Lugar Courtroom, surrounded by portraits of former West Virginia Supreme Court justices, is also where two law alumni recently declared their love and life-long commitment to each other in the form of a marriage proposal.

That is what happened on September 30, 2014, when Joe Fabie ‘14 proposed to Christi Fraser ‘13 in the very courtroom where they first met two years earlier—and she said “Yes.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise and I wanted it to be some place that had a special meaning for both of us,” said Joe. “We met at the law school, our relationship flourished there, and that’s where we fell in love—so I thought that would be the perfect place to propose.”

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA—The recent federal indictment of former Massey Energy chief Donald L. Blankenship for violating health and safety laws is unprecedented says a West Virginia University law professor who contributed to a 2011 state report on the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that found the company directly responsible for the blast that killed 29 miners in 2010. 

Massey owned the Upper Big Branch mine where a methane gas explosion spread through two miles of tunnel, killing the miners. 

“Those responsible for managing mines in a way that caused multiple deaths were never held responsible,” Patrick McGinley, the Charles H. Haden II Professor of Law, told The New York Times. “It shocks the conscience.”

The explosion fed on illegally high levels of coal dust, according to reports, and federal prosecutors have accused Blankenship of ignoring health and safety laws to maximize profits while covering up violations.

McGinley served as a member of then-Gov. Joe Manchin’s investigative team that explored the failure of basic coal mine safety practices at the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

McGinley is available to the media to offer commentary on the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, the indictment of Blankenship, as well as mine safety issues, black lung and the environmental impact of mining operations. McGinley can be reached via email at Patrick.McGinley@mail.wvu.edu or by phone at 304-293-6823.

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA —West Virginia University College of Law professor Joshua Fershee is the author of a new textbook on energy law. 

“Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook” (Carolina Academic Press, 2014) covers energy-focused topics such as economic regulations, mineral rights, market structures, and environmental concerns.

“Energy law is actually kind of hard to define, and one of the things that I think my book helps show is that it’s . . . an amalgam of a variety of different areas,” said Fershee in an interview with New Books in Law.

“Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook” is part of the Context and Practice Series, edited by Michael Hunter Schwartz, Professor of Law and Dean of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law.

Fershee joined the faculty of WVU Law in fall 2012 as part of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development and the WVU Shale Gas Initiative. His research and scholarship focus primarily on energy law and business law. He is director of WVU’s LL.M. in energy and sustainable development law.

-WVU-

MORGANTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA—Several WVU Law students recently presented bills they had researched and drafted to state legislators. The practical experience was the culmination of Lawyers & Legislation, a seminar taught by Professor of Law David Hardesty, WVU President Emeritus.

The mock legislative hearings were conducted before West Virginia state senators Robert Beach and Amanda Pasdon, and former delegate Alex J. Shook ‘97.

The students’ bills ranged from banning revenge porn and requiring lower teacher-student ratios in public schools to legalizing marijuana and prohibiting employment and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and identity.

Rebekah Bofinger, a 3L, says she got a lot out of the class because it required practical drafting skills instead of writing a research paper on a certain area of law.