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Top 10 Biglaw Firm To Conduct 'Massive' Layoff, Leaving Hundreds Jobless Thanks To AI - Above the Law

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https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/west-virginia-legislature-opens-2026-session-with-nearly-1-000-bills-introduced/article_27157304-d21e-434d-878d-ce329e6e04e8.html?utm_source=copilot.com

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WVVA) - Governor Patrick Morrisey has appointed Brian Keith Cochran to serve as Mercer County’s 13th Circuit Court judge.

Cochran fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge William J. Sadler in December.

Cochran has served as Mercer County’s prosecuting attorney since 2020 and brings more than three decades of combined law enforcement and legal experience to the bench. He has handled a wide range of criminal and civil matters and has represented individuals, businesses, municipalities and governmental entities across West Virginia. Cochran served as city attorney for Bluefield and worked in private practice before returning to public service.

https://www.wvnstv.com/news/west-virginia-attorney-general-files-new-lawsuit-in-opioid-crisis/

Read Here: https://www.wowktv.com/news/west-virginia/attorneys-file-claims-against-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-for-children-born-with-nas/

            Of all the official government documents drafted in the history of the United States of America, only the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States can exceed the Emancipation Proclamation in importance.

            Yet few documents are as misunderstood and subject to as many myths and downright lies as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

            Look at what the document says about freeing slaves:

On the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

            A few years ago there was an article in USA Today in which the writer listed some what he called "urban myths" which he felt were appropriate for Black History Month. His Myth No. 1 was: "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves." The writer went on to say:

The Emancipation Proclamation . . . didn’t free a single slave that Lincoln was in a position to set free. It ordered the release of slaves in "any state or designated part of a state" that was in rebellion against the federal government. The areas covered by Lincoln’s historic order were under the control of the Confederate Army, a fact that made the Emancipation Proclamation virtually unenforceable.

Even worse, Lincoln exempted from his order slaves held in parts of the South that were under the control of the Union Army. He excluded the 48 counties of Virginia that would later become West Virginia. His order also left enslaved blacks in New Orleans and 12 Louisiana parishes, as wells as slaves in Portsmouth and Norfolk, Va., and seven surrounding counties occupied by Union forces.

            In addition to the writer’s down-his-nose tone, which seems to suggest Lincoln did not want to free slaves in any territory the Union Army controlled, he was incorrect when he said the Proclamation "didn’t free a single slave that Lincoln was in a position to set free." Simply stated,  Lincoln was not, to use that writer’s language, “in a position to set free” all slaves everywhere.

            Still, the fact remains that, by its very terms, the Emancipation Proclamation did not set free a single slave on the day it was issued! So just what was going on with this momentous document?

            Well, there are two key points to the proclamation that critics ignore. First, the Proclamation had enormous political impact, at home and abroad, which, in turn, had a huge effect on the outcome of the war. In fact, you can make the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation actually assured the ultimate victory of the Union cause.

            Second, a great many slaves WERE ultimately freed by the Proclamation as the Union Army took control of more and more territory that had been held by the Confederate States of America on January 1, 1863.

            To begin, however, let’s dismiss the idea that Lincoln was somehow favorably disposed toward slavery, as many who do not understand the Emancipation Proclamation seem to imply.

            As Doris Kearns Goodwin put it in her magnificent book, Team of Rivals, , "armies of scholars, meticulously investigating every aspect of his life, have failed to find a single act of racial bigotry on his part." Even if you want to judge him by 21^st Century ideals  and standards – which is unfair – Lincoln was never favorably disposed toward slavery.

            But he made it clear, once he had been elected President, that his task as President was to save the Union, not to destroy slavery. In a famous letter to Horace Greeley, the gadfly editor of the New York TRIBUNE. Lincoln wrote:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

            By the late summer of 1862, however, Lincoln had concluded it was time to take the final step to proclaim freedom for the slaves. Simply put, the war was not being won; indeed it seemed quite possible it would be lost. Union armies were stalled in the West, the attempt to open the Mississippi at Vicksburg was going nowhere, and a strong Confederate army was moving into Kentucky. In the East things were, if anything, worse. The great drive to take Richmond  – known as the Peninsula Campaign – had ended with the Union army being shoved back down the James River to Harrison’s Landing by a much smaller Rebel army. And there had been another defeat in the second Battle of Bull Run. Now Robert E. Lee was at the Potomac , preparing to invade the North. England and France appeared to be on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy, which would very likely have insured its independence.

            But the President did not have the legal authority to issue a proclamation freeing slaves. That would be an interference with the right of property and slaves – as repugnant as we find the idea today – were a species of property. The President – as powerful as he was – could not interfere with the property rights of the citizens of the United States. That was the law of the land. Period.

            Facing this situation, Lincoln recognized two facts:

            First, the strongest and most determined sentiment in favor of going on to victory at any cost was that of the anti-slavery people.

             Second, powers such as England and France – distressed by the cotton blockade, and not very fond of the United States anyway – could intervene in a war that meant nothing more than an attempt by certain states to win their independence. But they could not intervene if that meant supporting a fight to continue slavery and opposing a fight to free the slaves.

            So Lincoln believed he had to make the war into a war to destroy slavery. But how could he, since it was well-accepted as a matter of law that the President could not interfere with the property rights of slave owners? So how did Lincoln manage it?

            Earlier in 1862 he had read William Whiting’s The War Powers of the President in which Whiting had pointed out that the President's war powers are almost unlimited. The President, as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy, subject to ratification by Congress, Whiting argued, can do just about anything he thinks needs to be done to win a war. Lincoln concluded, then, that he could proclaim freedom for the slaves as a war measure. In fact the very language of the Proclamation on this point is: “this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity.”

            It is this idea of the Proclamation as a war measure that accounts for the odd shape the document took. It proclaimed freedom for the slaves in precisely those areas where the government could not – at that moment – enforce freedom; that is, the Deep South, where the armies of the Union had not yet obtained control.

            In the border slave states – Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland – which had remained with the Union, the Emancipation Proclamation specifically had no effect. In such states as Tennessee and Virginia the Proclamation applied only to the areas still in rebellion, and not to the areas that had been pacified. (Thus, for example, the Emancipation Proclamation had no effect in what is now West Virginia! ) To have taken away citizens’ slaves in those areas would have been to interfere with the right of property and – those areas not being under Confederate control ­­ – the President could not call on his war powers to justify such a seizure of private property.

            But . . . in those states and parts of states where the Confederacy still held control, freeing the slaves – or, more properly, promising that slaves would be free as soon as the Federal Government gained control – could have enormous impact.

            So, with the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln confronted four million black slaves and –  with however many provisos and qualifications – went on to say these people would be "then, thenceforward, and forever free."

            The slaves took him very seriously. They did not have access to newspapers, and most of them couldn’t have read them if they had. They were locked away, far behind the army, and yet they knew almost instantaneously that the President of the United States was saying they were going . . . to . . . be . . . free! From that moment on, slavery was doomed.

            The Proclamation had changed the whole character of the war and, more than any other single thing, doomed the Confederacy to defeat.

            The Northern government was now committed to a broader cause, with deep, mystic overtones; it was fighting for union and for human freedom, and the very nature of the Union for which it was fighting would be permanently deepened and enriched. Northerners who had wondered whether the war was quite worth its terrible cost heard, at last, what Bruce Catton would call “the faint, haunting echo of democracy’s trumpets.”

            And in Europe the American Civil War had become something in which no western government dared to intervene. No government that had to pay the least attention to the sentiment of its own people could take sides against a government which was trying to destroy slavery.

            The Emancipation Proclamation had locked the Confederates in an anachronism which could not survive in the modern world.

            One other point: The Proclamation contained this paragraph:

I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition [that is, former slaves] will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

            This meant former slaves would be taken into the Union Army and Navy, not just as servants, but as soldiers and sailors. Once this had happened and these men fought for the Union, there could be no turning back.

            General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was far from being an Abolitionist, remarked in 1863: “the whole army of the United States could not restore the institution of slavery in the South; they can’t get back their slaves, any more than they can get back their dead grandfathers; it is dead.” And Sherman was right.

            From a purely military perspective, stating that slaves freed by the Proclamation “will be received into the armed service of the United States,” was significant. Ultimately it would bring 180,000 African-Americans into the ranks. Black troops would provide roughly 9 percent of the two million total Union armies enlistments, and their actual contribution was significantly greater, since these enlistments were concentrated in the last two years of the war, when the total strength of the Union armies varied between 700,000 and one million men.

            Something else about the Proclamation was quite radical. It enjoined Blacks freed by the act “to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense.” This was intended to mollify those in the North, as well as in England, who feared general emancipation would be the signal for a slave uprising.

            But, by suggesting Blacks could use violence for self-defense, the Proclamation attacked the fundamental principle of plantation law and discipline, which not only forbade the slave to resist punishment or even abuse by a legal master, but also prohibited an appeal to either the civil or the criminal court.

            By conferring a right of self-defense on the slave, Lincoln had negated the fundamental law of slavery.       

            It is true, then, that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave on the day it was issued. But it drove the final nail into the coffin of the institution of slavery. It led directly to the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution and the TOTAL elimination of human slavery in the United States.

            Abraham Lincoln, described by Elton Trueblood as the “Theologian of American Anguish,” was also a very savvy prairie politician. In issuing the Emancipation Proclamation his savvy political instincts and his deep sense of humanity came into play.

            Free people everywhere are still in his debt.

By: Robert D. Fisher, WVBA President

Power. It's a heavy word, one that carries weight when you say it. And it’s not a word that attorneys use in everyday conversation often when describing themselves, but it’s a word that is attached to our profession, for better or for worse.

Power is something that comes immediately when you become an attorney. When you take that oath and walk out of the Supreme Court, you have acquired a power that few others have. The power to file lawsuits that can have rippling impacts on future generations. The power to make right the wrongs people have had visited upon them. The power to ensure that the last wishes of the dying are carried out to their specificity. When you are accepted as a member of the West Virginia Bar, you acquire immediate power, and you have to decide how you are going to use it.

Some people would say that attorneys wield power like Thor's hammer, just bringing it down on whomever they see fit. And yes, some people use power to rule others, to the detriment of those being ruled. But more often than not, the power that attorneys wield is done to help those around them, and the more that you as an attorney use your inherent power for the good of your community and profession, the more that power grows.

In my mind, the most powerful attorneys have the following key characteristics: a good attitude, courage, aspirations, the desire to give, the desire to mentor, and knowing how to properly measure success.

A good attitude is a fast way to increase your power as an attorney because by showing a positive attitude, you'll inspire others around you to be positive as well. One of my favorite quotes by Charles Swindoll is "People who inspire others see bridges at the end of a dead-end street." (appropriate for us real estate attorneys!). If you believe something can happen, then you have the power to rally people around you, so your good attitude will bring good power.

Having courage is another way to build your power as an attorney. You need guts to do the things we do, when so much of what we do means choosing sides. Your goals for a case are not your adversary's goals, and you must stand your ground and be passionate when faced with that adversity. It also means taking chances with your career: maybe you finally run for county prosecutor after years of working as an assistant. Maybe you take a risk and start your own firm after years of practice in a large, nationwide law firm. Or perhaps you decide to hang out a shingle in a small town and take a pay cut because setting your own hours is worth more than money. With courage comes power, the power to advocate well for your clients, but also to define what kind of career will make you a happier attorney.

Without aspirations, there is no hope of strengthening your power. When you allow yourself to become complacent with your career, you lose your desire to learn. Some people stop aspiring because they fear the setbacks that can come with failure when trying to reach those goals. It's important that you reframe your response to failure, instead looking at failure as a teachable moment. Learn from your prior attempts, then reach for that goal again.

One of the best ways to increase your power as an attorney is to give back. Let the community see the good attorneys can do for them, not just as officers of the law, but as people with skills that can be of aid in lots of different situations. Join the boards of your local development authority, library, or Main Street. Become a volunteer for your local school system as a Read Aloud reader. Sponsor a little league team, or help high school kids attend leadership camps. And while it's important that the community respect our profession and understand that we should be paid for our knowledge, expertise, and time, it's equally important you help those who can't afford to pay. Give an occasional talk to retired people about estate planning or volunteer to answer phone calls through Legal Aid. If you take this power that you've been given as an attorney and use it to build up your community, you'll find your power building in a way that adds value to the community you serve.

A powerful person should also be someone who desires to share that power through the art of mentoring. Mentoring is indeed an art. Ask anyone who has ever had a bad supervising attorney! Not everyone is cut out to be a mentor, and that's okay. But for those of you possessed with the art of not only being able to teach all those attorney skills they won't teach in law school, but also being possessed of that giving nature where you truly enjoy sharing that knowledge and training the next generation, you possess power in a way that massively affects our profession. You, and the good mentors that came before you, help continue a grand tradition of good attorneys here in West Virginia, and hopefully, good mentors.

And finally, the most powerful attorneys I know understand what success means to them. Success is not the same for everyone. For me, I always wanted my success to be defined by whether I did better for myself, my family, my friends, and my community over the course of my career. My definition of success is different than others, who may consider monetary gains or position in society as their success markers. Neither of us are wrong, because the key is not what kind of success you seek, but that you seek it in a way that does not harm anyone else in your pursuit of success. Those who are truly powerful measure their success not against the success of others, but against their personal goals.

So don't shy away from associating being an attorney with power, because it’s by utilizing the power that we are given when we become members of the bar that we grow into our best selves, as attorneys and as people. Just don't forget what everyone's favorite Uncle Ben Parker said, "With great power, comes great responsibility." Grow your power well and use it wisely.

Are you a dynamic professional with a passion for driving organizational success? The West Virginia Bar Association is actively seeking a motivated self-starter to join us as our Executive Director. As the Executive Director, you will be the driving force behind furthering our mission, overseeing administration, programs, and strategic plans. In this flexible, fully remote position you will answer directly to the President and Executive Council, ensuring collaborative decision-making as you engage in various projects, from continuing legal education seminars to bench-bar events and even social gatherings like college football tailgates.

If you are a proactive professional ready to make a significant impact, we invite you to join us in advancing our mission and enhancing West Virginia's legal community! To apply, please send your resume and cover letter to director@wvbarassociation.org by March 25, 2024. We look forward to welcoming a visionary leader to our team!

Job Title: Executive Director of The West Virginia Bar Association
Location: Remote
Compensation: Salary to be commensurate with experience. 
Application Deadline: March 25, 2024
Submission Instructions: Submit resumes and cover letters to director@wvbarassociation.org

The West Virginia Bar Association (WVBA), through its Executive Council, retains the broad general power of supervision over the Executive Director as to the results of the work completed, and it is available for advice and counsel as the Executive Director works with Executive Council to fulfill the organization’s mission, strategic plans, operation and goals.

• Responsible for working with the Executive Council in a manner that supports and guides the organization’s mission
• Responsible for communicating effectively, timely, and regularly with the Executive Council in order to provide information necessary to facilitate the Executive Council’s work and decisions
• Responsible for reporting activities to the Executive Council on a timely and regular basis
• Works closely with the Executive Council on policy decisions and fundraising, and to increase the visibility and impact of the WVBA
• Organizes and oversees Executive Council, committee, and division meetings as requested
• Maintains the organization’s official records and minutes in an organized and easily accessible fashion

• Responsible for the fiscal integrity of the WVBA, including the timely submission to Executive Council of a proposed annual budget and monthly financial statements which accurately reflect the financial condition
• Planning for and operation of the annual budget
• Responsible for fiscal management that anticipates operating and does operate within the approved budget, ensures maximum resource utilization and maintenance of the WVBA in a positive financial position
• Responsible for collecting membership dues, other fundraising including sponsorships, and developing other resources to support the WVBA mission

• Responsible for implementing new revenue-generating programs
• Responsible for preparing and implementing the strategic plan in order to ensure that the mission is fulfilled and advanced
• Establishing and maintaining relationships with other bar associations and other organizations and thereby enhancing the mission of the West Virginia Bar Association
• Organizing and executing the annual meeting of the membership and other membership and outreach/planning/meetings
• Establishing administrative policies and procedures for all functions and for the day-to-day operations of the WVBA

• Responsible for effective administration of operations
• Responsible for reviewing and signing notes and contracts made and entered into and on behalf of the WVBA as approved by its Executive Council
• Responsible for other duties as assigned by the Executive Council

• Responsible for the development and release of the “Weekly Digest” which is a weekly email campaign designed to engage and inform members of Association business
• Responsible for developing multi-channel advertising campaigns that drive interest and awareness for revenue-generating events and conferences
• Responsible for collaborating with the WV State Bar to effectively market events and conferences to lawyers across the state
• Responsible for maintaining the Association’s website including performing regular member database maintenance, developing event landing pages for all major events and conferences, managing and monitoring conference registration activity, and uploading relevant news articles and legal updates for members
• Responsible for managing the Association’s social networks including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & X
• Responsible for enhancing WVBA’s brand awareness by remaining active and visible in the state and by working closely with other professional and civic organizations
• Serves as a spokesperson to members, the media, and the public

Resumes and cover letters should be submitted to director@wvbarassociation.org by March 25, 2024.

By: David Fryson, Esq.

I have been a practicing lawyer since 1988, and I’m acutely aware of the interesting and curious dance that attorneys have with how to be addressed professionally, particularly in academic settings. It never occurred to me, however, that lawyers would use the title "Dr." until a few years after graduating from law school, when I accepted an adjunct position at a local college while also practicing law.

One of my students, who was also an administrative assistant for a local judge, referred to me as “doctor” one day in her judge’s outer chamber while scheduling a hearing. At the elevator after the meeting, one of participating attorneys snidely asked me whether I had another terminal degree besides the doctorate in jurisprudence. So began my ongoing exploration of the term “Dr.” And through that exploration, I have come to challenge the assumptions of not using the title for those whose terminal degree is the JD.

I am also an ordained minister, and the term “Dr.” is increasingly used by clergy, as well. This includes those who attended seminary, as well as those who have received this title from the full spectrum of institutions and honorary doctorates proliferate.

While on a planning committee to be the keynote speaker for a Martin Luther King commemoration a few years ago, my title of “pastor” was used along with the suffix “Esq.” A sitting judge on the committee took umbrage with this combination and made it known. Since the JD is a doctorate, the appropriate title for clergy who have a JD should be “the Rev. Dr.”

In America, among those with earned doctorates, only juris doctors are not afforded the courtesy of the title “Dr.” Understanding the history of this degree could be helpful in determining whether there should be a change in protocol.

History of the JD

A juris doctor or a doctorate in jurisprudence is a three-year professional degree historically known for its considerable intellectual rigor. Part of the challenge of perception with JDs using the title “Dr.” is that at one point, the American law degree was considered a bachelor of laws, or LLB.

Harvard University first awarded the LLB in 1820 as an undergraduate degree. The evolution of the JD as a graduate degree was deliberated throughout most of the 20th century. The awarding of the JD degree was first suggested by the Harvard Law School faculty in 1902, but the proposal did not meet with university approval. In 1903, the University of Chicago Law School, which was one of five law schools then demanding a college degree from its applicants, first conferred the JD on its graduates.

The mid-20th century saw a change in law school education with the law degree primarily becoming a graduate degree that required a four-year bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite for law school entry.

“Between 1964 and 1969, at the encouraging of the American Bar Association, most American law schools … upgraded their basic law degree from the traditional” LLB to JD “to reflect the (by then) almost-universal postgraduate status of the degree,” according to a 2012 blog post from the Marquette University Law School. Nevertheless, the American tradition that JD degree holders should not use the prefix “Dr.” persisted.

Interestingly, the first time that the doctorate degree was ever bestowed in any profession was in Bologna, Italy, in the 12th century and was awarded in civil law and then in canon law, medicine, grammar and other fields. Even now, the continental countries of Europe continue to award the doctorate degree in law and utilize that honorific title.

The American legal profession’s reluctance for law degree holders to advertise or utilize their degree in advertising has added to the challenge and current confusion as to the appropriateness of the term for JD holders.

In Formal Opinion 183, decided May 10, 1938, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility held that “it would be improper for a lawyer to place upon” a professional letterhead “any degree conferred” because “it would serve no purpose other than to advertise the qualification of the lawyer,” according to the San Diego County Bar Association.

Thirty-one years later, in Formal Opinion 321, issued March 1, 1969, the ABA committee recognized that Formal Opinion 183 “must be updated,” and that the use of the title “Dr.” is “proper in reputable law lists, on academic occasions and in academic circles when in accordance with the customs of the school and when dealing with lawyers and others abroad in countries in which lawyers are referred to as ‘doctor,’” according to the San Diego County Bar Association.

The ABA committee also stated: “Until the time comes when the JD degree is the universal degree for the initial study of law (as the MD degree is in medicine) we can see no reason to permit the professional use of this degree, so as to distinguish its holder as compared with others who hold a different degree.”

Today, the JD is the universal degree for the initial study of law, and this hesitancy should be resolved because the arguments against a JD using the prefix “Dr.” have increasingly become irrelevant.

Arguments against?

Some have opined that law school does not have a final research project or dissertation like the PhD. But those who have attained a law school education will attest that research is the foundation of the three years of matriculation and is a part of virtually all the classes.

Additionally, other terminal degree holders, such as the EdD (a doctor of education), do not have the research element and are often graduates of programs that are less intellectually rigorous than law school,but nevertheless are afforded the honorific title.

As a senior leader in a university setting, I observed how it can be a limiting factor for JDs to not have the option of using the title “Dr.” For instance, I was once a semifinalist for a university presidency. During my interview, virtually all faculty on the search committee were either PhDs or EdDs and used the title “Dr.” during the interview.

When someone referred to me as “doctor,” I corrected them, but I thought that this was a noticeable limitation in this academic setting. Later, when recounting this to the president of my university who is a dual JD/PhD holder, he counseled me to never correct someone who referred to me by the title because my JD is a doctorate.

Interestingly, the successful applicant for this presidency was a JD who used the title “Dr.” during his interview process. After he ascended to the presidency, his usage of the title “Dr.” apparently became a point of conversation, and I noticed that he stopped using the title.

In conclusion

Currently, practitioners and academics often use the traditional designations of “counselor” and “professor,” and these titles continue to be appropriate. Nevertheless, the usage of the title “Dr.” for JD holders is appropriate, and its usage should be discussed and clarified.

The unofficial prohibition and academic resentment toward the use of the term “Dr.” for holders of the JD is outdated and unnecessary, and it should be finally and formally considered and adjusted. Since the ABA has removed the limitation of the use of the title, it is time to formally provide a structure for JD holders who use the term “Dr.” to be universally accepted.