“I am reaching out on behalf of the 13th Judicial Circuit [now the 8th Judicial Circuit], to make you aware of a crisis in Kanawha County which directly impacts access to justice in our community. Within the last 10 years, the number of lawyers willing to serve as Court Appointed Counsel for criminal defendants (both misdemeanor and felony), Juvenile Abuse and Neglect, Guardians ad Litem, and Juvenile criminal matters has gone from an estimated 63 to 11. Kanawha County is currently in a situation where indigent defendants are in imminent danger of being denied their basic Constitutional rights and children have no representation in situations of abuse and neglect.” Judge Maryclaire Akers 13th Judicial Circuit December 30, 2024.
About 30 years ago, the legal profession in the United States appeared saturated. Experts warned young people to avoid the field of law because of the difficulty of finding jobs and careers. Anecdotally, people spoke of law school graduates taking paralegal jobs because of the dearth of opportunities.
Three decades later the Mountain State, particularly smaller communities, now see shortages of lawyers. Having too few lawyers creates both a social and an economic issue. As Judge Akers shared, fewer lawyers mean fewer court-appointed attorneys for indigent defendants.
When most think of lawyers, they often imagine television’s great fictional defense attorneys, such as Ben Matlock or Perry Mason. Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy on “Law and Order” provided an image of a principled district attorney navigating through the practicalities and ethics of criminal prosecutions. “Night Court” showed some of the absurdity that takes place in criminal courts, but never forgot that the law has a heart as well.
Most law, however, never takes place in a courtroom. Lawyers create contracts for businesses and individuals, prepare deeds and wills, litigate divorces, fight or help to enforce government agency regulations, and do a great deal of the “grunt work” in business and government.
Fewer attorneys willing and able to work in these less glamorous areas of law in less glamorous geographic areas mean that the business of small communities sometimes depends on the tight schedules of what few attorneys remain in practice in these areas. the American Bar Association with less than one lawyer per 1,000 residents as “legal deserts.” In West Virginia in 2024, 48 of 55 counties qualify as such.
Six of the seven counties listed not considered legal deserts have sizable urban populations. Pendleton in 2024 was the seventh because of its sparse population, but one of its career attorneys retired this year, pushing the county into “legal desert” status.
With national legal organizations calling the issue a “justice gap crisis,” the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals “authorized the creation of the Commission on the Future of the Practice of Law in West Virginia on April 15, 2025.” According to the published study, “The Court appointed Administrative Director Keith Hoover to serve as Chair, and appointed representatives of the West Virginia State Bar, West Virginia University College of Law, West Virginia Legislature, current circuit and family court judges, and a federal Magistrate to serve as Commissioners.”
It commenced work almost a year ago on August 18.
The Commission did not start from scratch, but in the course of research also asked field related stakeholders to provide analysis and opinion on recommendations made by The Committee on Legal Education and Admissions Reform (“CLEAR”). This slate of proposed reforms includes “innovative pathways to licensure”, accepting alternative pathways to licensure approved in other states, communicating the need for and prestige of public defense lawyers while also striving to lower caseloads and support “lawyer well-being”, encouraging conversations about financial aid and debt for school, and also working on ways to connect rural residents with legal education and early career opportunities.
In each case, CLEAR urged state supreme courts to assume a leadership role, which the WVSCA has done.
West Virginia between 2014 and 2024 lost about 10 percent of its practicing lawyers, from 4,873 to 4,420. Of those, only 2,221 work in private practice.
West Virginia University Law School saw applications and graduations from the program decline in the same period as well. During the same period of time, the state itself lost a little less than five percent of its population. About one-fourth of lawyers in the Mountain State, as of 2024, planned to retire between then and 2029.
Loss in population, however, does not correlate to a decrease in certain high-intensity cases. For example, the Commission reported that “in 2014 West Virginia courts handled 4,005 child abuse and neglect cases, while in 2024 the courts saw 5,472 such filings.”
Pendleton County-based attorney Isaac Sponaugle, also a former West Virginia House of Delegates Minority Leader, shared that “child abuse and neglect cases, which require the court to appoint counsel, have increased by more than 36 percent in the last decade.”
Additionally, attorneys who accept court-appointed defense assignments represent a relatively small minority of lawyers. A little less than one-third accept these assignments while 44 percent have done so in the past, but stated they probably would not do so again. Almost 25 percent stated they never have accepted court-appointed defense work.
Fewer attorneys willing to accept these assignments translates to increasing difficulty in scheduling dockets, particularly when individual lawyers work in multiple circuits.
Findings came from a survey that issued 2,177 questionnaires to West Virginia lawyers with a response rate of approximately 25 percent.
Photo Cutline: Isaac Sponaugle, area lawyer and former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, makes the case for local young people to study law and practice in smaller state communities
