Each year, the Public Interest Advocates (PIA) at the West Virginia University College of Law funds fourteen or fifteen Fellowships. These Fellows are placed in jobs with places like the West Virginia Legal Services Plan, Appalachian Legal Services, Mountain State Justice, Senior Legal Aid, and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (WVHC). Funding for these Fellowships comes from the organizations involved and from the PIA itself. In order to match that funding, the PIA holds several fund raisers during the year, culminating in the Spring Auction (attended by members of the West Virginia Bar).

This year, I was selected as the WVHC Fellow and I would like to extend my warmest thanks for the opportunity to work with everyone here. The WVHC has hired PIA Fellows for the past few years. Typically, the Fellows become engaged in some of the everyday affairs of the organization like getting mailings out and attending meetings with counsel or other conservation groups. More importantly, the Fellows complete a large project consisting of legal research and a great deal of wrangling with state agencies.

My project for the WVHC is to research timber law in West Virginia and the surrounding states, to compare the existing law with our proposed timber law, and to generally see what the state can do to better foster good forest practices.

I graduated from West Virginia University with an English degree in 1999. I currently live between Morgantown, Charleston, and Teays Valley, dragging my girlfriend and cat along. My immediate goal is to survive law school and then to create a multi-disciplinary practice consisting of lawyers, architects, engineers, and psychologists focused on creating a holistic approach to relieving legal and social problems. The firm will focus on urban planning, environmental law, mental health, consumer law, and media law.

Anyway, I’ll be down here at 501 Elizabeth Street, Room 3, Charleston, WV 25311. Feel free to direct any inquires to this office.