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“What kind of lawyer are you?” is a question most attorneys get as soon as someone learns of his or her occupation. However, what I didn’t realize until after graduating law school is that many people don’t realize that there are different types of lawyers who specialize in various areas of law. Although there are attorneys who act as general practitioners and deal with a wide variety of law, just like doctors, many of us attorneys have areas of specific expertise in which we practice. To paint a better picture of the legal world, I’ve provided a breakdown of the many areas of law in which attorneys may work and specialize: General Criminal Law DUI Law Personal Injury Medical Malpractice Trucking Consumer Legal Malpractice Insurance Bankruptcy Workers Compensation Real Estate Oil and Gas Tax Wills and Trusts Contracts Traffic Law Labor and Employment Corporate Disability Intellectual Property Patent Trademark Copyright Immigration International Law Family Law Products Liability Life Sciences Civil Litigation Elder Law Civil Rights Land Use and Development Toxic Tort Entertainment Law Construction Law Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Hopefully this gives you some insight into the various areas of law that exist.

What may seem like common terms to attorneys may be unfamiliar to clients. Below are some examples of terms that clients may come across during the course of his or her case, so that they may better understand the case. ______________________________________ Affidavit – A written or printed statement made under oath. Answer - The formal written statement by a defendant in a civil case that responds to a complaint, articulating the grounds for defense. Arbitration – A non–judicial legal procedure that happens outside of the courts where parties dispute in front of a neutral arbitrator. Attorney Client Privilege – Communications between an attorney and client that are confidential. Bench Trial – The trial where the judge will find the facts and also apply the law instead of letting a jury decide the law. Complaint – A legal document filed in court that initiates a civil lawsuit. The complaint states the plaintiffs' allegations against the defendant and their prayers for relief. Contingency Fee – Rather than an hourly or fixed fee, a contingency fee is paid to an attorney when an attorney is successful in making a recovery on behalf of his client. The lawyer receives a percentage of the verdict or settlement amount. If the lawyer is unsuccessful in making any recovery for the client, there is no fee charged to the client. Defendant – The party that a lawsuit is brought against. Deposition – Oral testimony taken under oath in which one party presents questions to the other party or relevant witnesses. Discovery – The investigation that takes place before a lawsuit goes to trial. During this period, parties gather facts and information about the other party to build their case. Discovery can be written, in the form of interrogatories or request for production, or oral, which is typically in the form of a deposition. Evidence – Information to support or prove a case. Expert Witness – A witness who lends their expertise in a given field to testimony in support of a party's case. Interrogatory – The exchange of written questions between parties of a lawsuit used to uncover important information. A form of written discovery. Lawsuit – A legal proceeding between two parties in a court of law. Mediation – The attempt to settle a legal dispute through active participation of a third party (mediator) who works to find points of agreement and make those in conflict agree on a fair result. Motion – An application made to a judge for the purpose of obtaining an order directing some act to be done in favor of the party presenting the application. Personal Injury – Covers situations in which a person’s body, mind, or emotions are hurt, usually due to someone else’s negligence or carelessness. It includes wrongful death, or situations where an injury proves fatal. Another term for personal injury law is tort law. Plaintiff – In civil law, the person or party who brings the legal action or files the lawsuit; also called a complainant. Statute of Limitations - Time frame set by legislation where affected parties need to take action to enforce rights or seek redress after injury or damage. Summary Judgment – A final decision by a judge that resolves a lawsuit in favor of one of the parties. A motion for summary judgment is made after discovery is completed but before the case goes to trial.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that some of us will one day find ourselves in a situation where we’ll need a lawyer. Maybe we’ve been injured by someone crashing their car into us or putting a defective product into the marketplace. Maybe we’ve lost a loved one because another chose not to follow basic safety rules. Maybe we’ve been cheated out of our hard-earned money by some unscrupulous corporation. As a lawyer, I hear about terrible situations like this all the time. And a lot of times, these calls come months after the inciting event, which often prompts me to ask the caller why they waited so long to reach out to an attorney. And the answer I hear the most, by far, is some variation on “well, I just don’t have the money for a lawyer.” If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, it may be because you’re not familiar with the “contingency fee” agreement. The contingency fee agreement is a mechanism that allows anyone, regardless of income, to hire an attorney and bring a lawsuit, if necessary, when the circumstances justify legal protection. Under a typical contingent fee agreement, the "contingency" is usually the recovery of money, or something of value, for the client. If that contingency/recovery does not occur, then the client owes the attorney and the law firm nothing for the firm’s time and effort, or the litigation costs, in seeing the case through to its conclusion. Under the contingency fee agreement, the law firm takes all the risk, and the client is not out any money to pursue their right to justice. Contingency fee arrangements offer a number of additional benefits.  First, they give injured or wronged people of moderate financial means a fighting chance in the courtroom against the world’s most powerful corporations and insurance companies. Next, contingent fees help to weed out frivolous lawsuits by discouraging attorneys from presenting claims that have negative value or otherwise lack merit. Experienced lawyers will not waste their time on a lawsuit that does not have enough merit to justify investment of their time. Contingent fees also lock together the lawyer’s incentive with positive results for the client, because the lawyer’s pay is directly proportional to results obtained for the client. A lawyer who will not be paid unless the client is successful is highly motivated to get the optimal result for her client. In contrast, an hourly fee arrangement can encourage unnecessary action, inefficiency and delay to churn fees for the lawyer. Law firms with an hourly rate business model often set billable hour quotas for their attorneys, which often incentivizes the lawyers in a manner that oftentimes does not align with client outcomes. Contingency fee arrangements also encourage spending efficiency. Litigation expenses can be prohibitively high for injury victims. Law firms like Bordas & Bordas advance the expenses of the lawsuit (including things like filing fees; medical records and document collection; the hiring of expert witnesses, court reporters and videographers; travel costs, etc.) and absorb those costs if a client loses their case. Knowing they will get that money back only if their client wins, contingency fee lawyers are motivated to be prudent and cost-effective, spending only the money necessary to obtain the best result. Finally, the contingency fee has an implicit benefit for the client. This arrangement gives the client confidence that their lawyer believes in their case, is invested in their case, and will do their best work to obtain a positive resolution. Faith in the case, and the desire to fight for the client, may not always be present when hourly payment is guaranteed regardless of outcome.  So if you ever find yourself in the unfortunate predicament of needing a lawyer and thinking you cannot afford it, remember the contingency fee arrangement, and speak to an experienced law firm who offers that method of payment.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN”) Act, a federal law, became effective on February 4, 1989. The Act protects workers by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs. This notice is given to affected workers or their representatives, such as a labor union. WARN applies to large employers, specifically, an employer must give notice of impending lay-offs or reductions in force if they have 100 or more full-time employees, or at least 100 employees who work a combined 4,000 hours or more per week.  “Full time,” for these purposes, means working 20 or more hours per week.  Furthermore, employees must have worked for the employer for at least six of the 12 months before notice is required.  While business owners and partners are not entitled to notice under the Act, the protections of WARN extend to hourly workers as well as salaried workers, managers, and supervisors. Notice is required to reach the affected workers at least 60 days before a closing or layoff.  When the individual employment separations involving a closing or layoff occur on more than one day, the notices are due to the representatives at least 60 days before each separation.  If a worker is not represented, each worker’s notice is due at least 60 days before that worker’s separation. There are some exceptions to the notice requirement.  The Act does not require an employer to give notice if a plant closing is the closing of a temporary facility, or if the closing or mass layoff is the result of the completion of a particular project or undertaking.  This exemption applies only if the workers were hired with the express understanding that their employment was temporary and limited to the duration of the facility, project, or undertaking.  An employer may not avoid the notice requirement by labeling an ongoing project as “temporary” in order to evade its obligations under WARN. Employers who fail to abide by the WARN act may be penalized.  An employer who violates WARN provisions by ordering a plant closing or mass layoff without providing appropriate notice is liable to each aggrieved employee for an amount including back pay and benefits for the period of violation, up to 60 days.

Having worked with insurance companies for the past 15 years, I have been watching the tides turn, so to speak. I am seeing the day of having an “agent” to go to for information and clarification slowly dwindle away. Insurance companies, in an effort to compete financially with each other, have been doing away with the “agent layer” and implementing call centers and websites. I personally find this to be a double edged sword. I realize the younger, tech savvy generation does not want to make time to go see an agent. They would rather be able to logon to a website or make a quick call to get the insurance that they are required to have. This is where I find that it is failing. There is no agent explaining what policy limits, bodily injury, med pay and underinsured/uninsured coverage is and how important it is to have in the event that you are in an accident, injured and/or facing a lawsuit.  Many are choosing the rock bottom limits required by law, no med pay or not enough med pay and no un/underinsured coverage. No one is there waiving a red flag saying, “Whoa, you need this!" Unfortunately, for many, when they find out what it all means, it's too late… the accident has already happened and now there's a big mess to deal with and it can be devastating. I urge everyone to look at your policy. Research it. Find out what it all means. Look at your policy to make sure you have the coverage necessary to protect yourself. From the young to the old, you may think you have the coverage you need and don’t. It may be the same policy you’ve had for years and you are thinking, its perfect, not realizing maybe your financial situation has changed since you purchased the policy and now you need more coverage, or maybe you “thought” you selected underinsurance and you didn’t. Don’t wait until it is too late. Take a good look today!!

One of the most serious and challenging types of legal case is the case of wrongful death. When someone’s carelessness, or even worse, intentional wrongdoing, takes the life of one of our fellow human beings, it is imperative that justice be done. Most people are probably unaware that throughout most of the legal system’s history, there was no such thing as suing for wrongful death. Under what is called the “common law,” wrongful death was not a viable cause of action because the person who was dead could not sue. This lead to disturbing situations and incentives. For example, if someone ran you over (say with a horse and carriage) and seriously hurt you, they would face a substantial claim for your injuries, medical expenses, and so forth. But, if they backed up over you again and killed you, suddenly you would have no claim at all. Obviously, we didn’t want to be in a situation where it’s better financially for wrongdoers to kill us, than merely to hurt us. So, wrongful death was invented and passed into what we call “statutory” law coming from the various state legislatures, and the U.S. Congress. These wrongful death statutes laid out the kinds of damages that could be awarded to the “estate,” or representative of a person who has been wrongfully killed. They also set forth which people would be entitled to collect those damages. In some cases, they set forth the maximum amounts that could be had as damages. In West Virginia, for example, the wrongful death statute for many years capped damages at $10,000 per person killed. While it might have sounded like a substantial sum, when the law was passed, the damage cap eventually lead to clearly unjust situations. For example, when the Pittston coal slurry impoundment breached its dam and killed 125 people at Buffalo Creek, the coal company was able to claim that its damages were limited to the value of property that was destroyed, and $10,000 per innocent victim. Situations like that led to the cap on damages being removed and the amount of damages to be awarded in any given case to be left in the hands of the jury that hears the evidence. In the modern world, with major companies not only operating in heavy industry like coal but also in the area of pharmaceuticals, nursing home administration and trucking, the wrongful death cause of action is a critical piece of protection for every American. The availability of damages for a wrongful death is what checks sometimes ruthless corporate thinking about whether it is better to fix a dangerous product or to allow it to go on the market. For example, a drug that a pharmaceutical company knows will cause a hundred wrongful deaths that the company estimates can be defended or settled for $100 million, might still be a very profitable drug for the company to release if they believe its sales will bring $200 million, $300 million or $400 million in profit to the company. Juries have power, by raising the value that we place on human life, to rein in that kind of thinking, and make sure the companies do the right thing and choose protecting the lives of their fellow citizens over expanding corporate profits. Each time a jury returns a verdict in a wrongful death case, they make a statement, not only to the defendant in that particular case, but to every other company and individual that might carelessly cause a loss of human life. The message is that the law is watching and that our juries care about the lives of their fellow citizens. By making sure that no wrongful death goes unredressed, our juries and our courts of law provide protection to all Americans.

Over the years, I’ve been told some fun facts about Easter that perhaps you don’t know and I would like to share. - Did you know that the tallest chocolate Easter egg ever made stood almost 40 feet? I sure do wish I would have been there to see that. - Giving of eggs is considered a symbol of rebirth.  Seems fitting for what we are truly celebrating. - Statistics say that Americans buy more than 700 million marshmallow Peeps during Easter.  I don’t even like marshmallows, but they are cuties. - We consume more than 16 million jelly beans during the Easter holiday.  I can’t imagine fitting all those into a jar. - The idea of the Easter bunny giving candies and eggs is said to have originated in the middle ages, but I don’t know of anyone who truly believe that an oversized rabbit hops around homes hiding baskets. That one we never even tried to pull off in our house. - And did you know that the bunny originated in Germany?  I guess that makes sense since Germany is known for its decadent chocolates. Whatever your Easter traditions are, share some of the fun facts with family and friends.  It can make for good conversation wherever you may be. Have a Happy Easter Everyone!

The Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job protected leave for specified family and medical reasons. FMLA, a federal law, provides for the continuation of group health insurance coverage during the leave period.  Eligible employees are entitled to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for the following events: - The birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within 12 months of birth; - The adoption of a child or foster parenting of a child; - To bond with a child (leave must be taken within one year of the child’s birth or placement); - To care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition; - For the employee’s own serious health condition that makes an employee unable to work; - Any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” OR - Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent or next of kin. FMLA leave is not required to be taken in one block, all at once. When it is medically necessary or otherwise permitted, employees may take leave intermittently or on a reduced schedule basis. Employees may choose, or an employer may require, use of accrued paid leave while taking FMLA leave. If an employee substitutes accrued paid leave for FMLA leave, the employee must comply with the employer’s normal paid leave policies. Upon return from leave, most employees must be restored to the same job or one that is nearly identical to it with equivalent pay, benefits, and other employment terms and conditions. FMLA also prohibits discrimination or retaliation against an employee for using or trying to use FMLA leave. Specifically, FMLA makes it unlawful to “interfere” with, “restrain” or “deny” the exercise of an any attempt to exercise, rights that are provided by FMLA. In addition, employers may not use the fat that an employee has taken FMLA leave as a negative factor in hiring decisions or promotion determinations. Not every employer is required to comply with FMLA. FMLA applies to those employers who employed 50 or more employees for at least 20 workweeks during either this year or the previous year. FMLA also applies to all public agencies (state and local governments) and to all schools, whether public or private. Public agencies and schools do not need to meet the requirement of employing at least 50 people.   FMLA also covers most federal employees, and is covered by regulations issued by the Office of Personnel Management. Not every employee is eligible for FMLA leave. Eligibility for FMLA leave is reserved for employees who have worked for an employer for at least 12 months, and they must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months immediately preceding the date FMLA leave to begin. Generally, employees must give 30 days’ notice in advance of the need for FMLA leave; however, if it is not possible to give 30 days’ notice, an employee must notify the employer as soon as possible. Although employees are not required to share a medical diagnosis, they must provide enough information to the employer so it can determine if the leave qualifies for FMLA protection. In addition to FMLA leave, most states have a similar statutory version of family leave or medical leave that provides protections and benefits for employees.

Anyone reading this blog may have signed a paper that contains an arbitration clause. Certainly if you’ve ever owned stock, you signed an agreement with your broker promising to arbitrate your case with a group called FINRA.  The arbitration takes the matter out of the court system and puts your case into the world of arbitration.  Likewise, if you’ve purchased a cell phone or many other products, if a loved one entered a nursing home recently or if you have signed an oil and gas lease, there’s a strong chance that the document you signed contains an arbitration agreement. The arbitration clauses are favored by most large corporations in this country in an effort, they say, to cut costs and to speed up disputed matters. That, in my opinion as a lawyer who’s been practicing since 1972, is not the real reason. The real reason that companies fight so hard to stick arbitration clauses in documents they want you to sign is to prevent a jury of your peers from deciding an issue. The reason is that a company, such as AT&T, a stock brokerage company or an oil and gas company, will have hundreds, if not thousands of arbitration cases each year. You will have only one. The problem may be readily apparent to you even at this juncture, but if it’s not, let me tell you that what happens in an arbitration hearing. You are provided, in most cases, with a panel of arbitrators. From the panel, you may eliminate a certain number of arbitrators based on information that is provided to you in order to ultimately come up with either one, two or three arbitrators. The problem is that these arbitrators, in many cases, make either part or all of their living by this arbitration work, and if one party has 1,000 cases and you only have one, it seems reasonable to me to assume that it’s likely that the arbitrator may be somewhat biased towards the party that’s, for the most part, providing his or her livelihood. Also, in my opinion, the arbitration system has been neither faster nor cost effective. The long and short of this, and the reason I write this blog, is because I’m presently at my desk reading the most recent appeal filed by an oil and gas company, SWN Production Company, against my clients appealing an Order of one of our local judges to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The local judge ruled that the arbitration clause was not valid and binding. SWN Production Company filed a Petition to the Supreme Court asking them to reverse the ruling of the Circuit Court and force arbitration on my clients. It is our responsibility as the attorneys for landowners to respond to West Virginia Supreme Court petitions by drafting and filing our own brief, designating a record, and finally by appearing before the Court and arguing the case. Our Supreme Court then will rule, and there’s a good chance if the ruling goes against us, the matter will,  in all likelihood, be further appealed to the United States Supreme Court. This in an effort not to resolve the merits of the case, but to simply eliminate my client’s ability to allow a jury of their peers to hear the case that they brought against this oil and gas production company. The moral of the story, in my opinion, is to avoid at all costs, if you can, entering into agreements that have arbitration provision or clauses. You should also ask lawyers to review those contracts that you know have these clauses and to offer advice. Finally, if nothing else can be done, and if you’ve been hurt as a result of these clauses and contracts you’ve signed, contact your legislature in an effort to try to get these arbitration clauses removed.

Did you know that when your insurance company fails to act appropriately in resolving an insurance claim that you have filed, either by way of paying inappropriate sums of money or by greatly delaying the recovery, that you may have a case against your own insurance company for bad faith insurance practices? Insurance companies have a duty to treat you the same way that it would want to be treated. That is, it should not put its interests above yours while assisting you during the claim process. Unfortunately, all too often, insurance companies choose to put its own interests ahead of clients, leaving the clients frustrated, unhappy and sometimes putting them in financial ruin by dragging things out or failing to protect the client when the insurance company’s client is actually being sued. When the insurance company fails to act appropriately and puts its interest ahead of yours, you should call an attorney who represents people in bad faith insurance cases and schedule an appointment. The most frequent bad faith cases that our firm sees is denial of an injured party’s offer to settle his or her case within the policy limits. The problem is two-fold. If this is an uninsured or underinsured case and the policyholder is the one making the demand to settle within policy limits and the insurance company refuses to pay what is rightfully due to the policyholder, then the insurance company may be putting its interest above the policyholder, and the insurance company is then subjected to a potential bad faith insurance claim. The insured then may be able not only to collect the contractual damages that they may be entitled to, but also damages above the policy limits because of the insurance company’s refusal and failure to appropriately act. If the insured is the at-fault individual in an auto accident and the insurance carrier refuses to make a good faith settlement offer or to pay a policy limits demand, then the insurance company may be at fault if in fact there is a settlement or verdict in excess of the insured’s policy limits. The insured, at that point, would have a case against his or her insurance company for the excess verdict and any other damages caused to the insured. Another scenario that one might consider is when an insurance company denies coverage outright and refuses to defend the insured, or chooses to defend its insured under a thing called a reservation of rights when the insurance company actually hires lawyers, but does not promise to pay if in fact the lawyers hired by the insurance carrier lose the case. All in all, the message that should be received by those reading this blog is that if in fact you’re having a problem with your insurance company in either settling a case in which you’ve been injured, or the insurance company is dragging its feet and refuses a good faith offer by someone you have injured, then you need to seek the services of competent attorneys who handle bad faith insurance cases and who have done so successfully in the past. These bad faith cases, often times, are complex and require the assistance of lawyers who regularly engage in this type of work. Bordas & Bordas has been successful in both scenarios in achieving, in many cases, multi-million dollar results for our clients who have been wronged by the insurance industry.

For someone who came of age in an era of no internet or connected tech. I have, like most others I think, quickly and completely embraced the tech era of cell phones, Echo speakers, smart TVs and other connected devices. The time saving and information benefits offered by these devices are simply too enticing to ignore, and once you start to experience them, there really is no going back. Not to mention the increasing need for them simply to participate in our daily activities. However, one thing that is also becoming increasingly clear is that vast amounts of data collected from these devices— including our phones, fitness trackers, smart refrigerators, thermostats and cars, among other connected tech. — are increasingly being creatively utilized in U.S. legal proceedings to prove or disprove claims by people involved and to disseminate personal information about you. For instance, in Pennsylvania, a woman who claimed she was raped had her case dismissed after authorities collected data from the woman's Fitbit and found that it contradicted her version of her whereabouts during the alleged assault. In Ohio man whose house caught fire claimed he was forced to escape through a window. However, his pacemaker data, obtained by police, showed otherwise, and he was charged with arson and insurance fraud. In another recent case that made headlines, authorities in Arkansas are trying to obtain data from a murder suspect's Amazon Echo speaker to use as evidence against him. Other instances where technology has intersected with the law in new and profound ways involve privacy. For instance, TV maker Vizio was fined by the US Federal Trade Commission in February when it was discovered that Vizio had been secretly gathering data on viewers it collected from its smart TVs and selling that information to marketers. Which, incidentally, is the entire business model for social media sites. In another unusual case, last month the maker of a smartphone-connected sex toy called We-Vibe agreed to a court settlement of a class-action suit from buyers who claimed "highly intimate and sensitive data" was, without permission, uploaded to the cloud – which has been repeatedly shown to be vulnerable to hacking. The seemingly overarching theme amongst these and other cases is that privacy, if not dead already, is certainly on the path to extinction. The expectation of privacy is radically different today than it was even a generation ago. Not only are we being constantly monitored and spied on, behind the scenes, but social media has seemingly transformed the human experience into one of publicly volunteering the formerly private details of their lives on a near daily basis. The "always on" nature of the "internet of things" devices, coupled with our increasing dependence on social media, means huge amounts of personal information are constantly circulating among companies, the cloud and elsewhere, with very few standards or regulations on how this data is to be protected or used. The danger in all this is that we are increasingly abdicating our personal privacy, autonomy and even human sovereignty to an omnipresent combination of corporate and government institutions in true neo-Orwellian fashion. While this data collection can be highly beneficial, in law enforcement for instance, it remains ripe and low hanging fruit for abusive behavior and the law of unintended consequences, and the legal system must find ways to define limits for constitutional protections against unreasonable searches in the face of increasingly gray legal areas promoted by this technology. The Amazon Echo speaker provides an interesting example of such challenges. We recently got one as a gift, and have quickly integrated it into our everyday lives.  “Alexa, add milk to the shopping list.”  “Alexa, wake me up at 5:30.” “Alexa, play some music.” We do all these things, and much more, every day, while never thinking about the fact that “Alexa” is also always on and always listening to our conversations, so she can always be ready when we call on her to do something. Now, under the law, gathering any data from the Amazon Echo should face the same standard as wiretaps, meaning you need a warrant from a judge based on probable cause of a crime. After all, the Fourth Amendment provides a right of absolute privacy concerning conversations in our homes. But these conversations Alexa is recording may also be sent to the cloud per the terms of the user agreement we “sign” (but never read) to download the Alexa app. In that case, the data has now been voluntarily given to a "third party," which can erase your constitutional privacy protection. So now what? The insidious nature of the new normal created by this technology has tremendous potential for privacy invasions, such that there must be effective jurisprudential and legislative means of addressing these issues. While the debate and tinkering over just how best to address this issue will continue for some time, we should all pay more attention to the way these connected devices in our homes will and do operate, so we can make the best decisions about how we conduct our lives. It’s not about having something to hide. It’s all about making sure that the things we do in our daily lives can’t be wrongfully manipulated against us in ways that ultimately make them worse.

As an attorney, I often get asked the question, “If I get sick, how do I make sure that my wishes are carried out?” In West Virginia, there are two types of health care documents that you can make.  The living will and the medical power of attorney.  Often times, people don’t understand the difference between the two or why they may need either one of them, so I thought it might be helpful to write a blog. A living will is a document that expresses the kind of medical treatment that you want or don’t want if you have a terminal condition or you are in a persistent vegetative state.  A living will consists of written decisions that you have made yourself.   A medical power of attorney is a document that appoints the person that you want to make health care decisions for you when you can’t make them for yourself.  In West Virginia, the person you appoint in your medical power of attorney is called a representative.  Your representative can make any health care decision that you could make if you were able. There are many reasons why you may want to make a living will and/or a medical power of attorney.  A medical power of attorney is important so that your medical care is not being decided by someone who knows very little about your wishes and what you would prefer.  Without a medical power of attorney, important health care decisions could potentially be made by a doctor or a judge who may know very little about you.  A living will is also important because it allows you to specifically set out the types of medical treatment that you want or don’t want. When appointing a representative, it is important that you give thought to your selection.  You will want to appoint someone who is trustworthy, dependable, assertive, and who lives nearby or is at least willing to travel if needed.  It is important to understand that this person will not begin to make healthcare decisions on your behalf until you are unable to do so.  Most people appoint a spouse, child, relative or close friend.  Under West Virginia law, you may not appoint your treating health care provider, an employee of a treating health care provider (unless they are related to you), an operator of a health care facility serving you, or an employee of an operator of a health care facility (unless they are related to you). When you or a loved one becomes ill and are unable to make health care decisions, it can be a very difficult time for family and loved ones.  Having a living will and a medical power of attorney can help alleviate some of the stress and heartache that go along with making such tough health care decisions.  Many people worry about signing these documents and then being stuck with them.  It is important to know that your living will and medical power of attorney can be changed at any time, as long as you are still living and competent.  Many of us go through life changes, such as divorce, deaths of loved ones, illnesses, etc., creating the need to change our living will and/or medical power of attorney.  There are many other reasons for having a living will and/or medical power of attorney and these are just a few. Keep in mind that you can write your own living will and medical power of attorney in West Virginia if it meets certain requirements.  However, this is one of the most important decisions you will ever make, so having the assistance of an attorney to ensure that your living will and/or medical power of attorney does what you want it to do is extremely valuable.  If you have a need for a living will and/or medical power of attorney or you need to change your existing ones, you should contact an attorney to discuss your particular situation.