Blog

The Beast of the East, a baseball tournament played at fields around the Ohio Valley, is quickly approaching. The Beast of the East is major attraction to teams all over the East Coast and there have even been teams in Canada to have played in the tournament. The 26th annual tournament is set to be one of the biggest yet with 130+ teams scheduled to play in the Beast. The Beast not only draws a numerous amount of teams, but also college scouts looking to recruit some of the top talent in the tournament. The Beast happens to fall on 4th of July weekend this year, which is a big plus for the city of Wheeling. With the players, coaches, and family members of the team coming to Wheeling, they will also be able to partake in the various 4th of July activities around the area. With the combination of great baseball and fireworks all around the area, it should give Wheeling a good representation to the visiting teams. Overall, the Beast definitely benefits Wheeling. With local hotels, restaurants, etc. booming with the burst of people coming in for the Beast,Wheeling will definitely see an economic growth the remainder of this week into the weekend.

The United States Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby tomorrow morning. You can read advance analysis of the case at the WVSCBlog at WVSCBlog.com or by following this link the WVSCBlog's coverage: Sunday Prayers Before Monday's Decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The much-anticipated decision has sweeping implications for religious freedom, abortion, birth control, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and the kind of health insurance available to women in the United States

Join Jamie Bordas and guest Chris Regan for another exciting edition of the Bordas & Bordas Legal Review. On this week's show, Jamie Bordas tackles an issue that is certainly one that is "affecting our nation": just exactly who is Chris Regan? Learn about Regan's background and experience and how it allows him to comment knowledgeably on any issue that Jamie raises during the course of the show. The show also covers an issue related to our local area-the verdict in the Craig Tyler Peacock case. Bordas and Regan go over the strategies used by the prosecution and the defense and analyze the verdict thoroughly from a legal perspective. The show also tackles the Washington R*dskins naming controversy currently brought back to the forefront by the Patent and Trademark Office's taking away trademark protection from the NFL team. You can view the Bordas & Bordas Legal Review locally on Comcast Channel 14 or also online, both streaming and in the archive. The current episode is embedded within this post. Click here to view the program on vimeo, or watch the embedded version if your browser supports it. Click this link to see the WLUTV schedule so you can view a live-stream of WLUTV and check this page for a schedule of when the program airs.

The highly-anticipated primary in Mississippi for the Republican Senatorial nomination didn't end the way many expected. But it wasn't just the result (a win for "Gentleman" Thad Cochran), that surprised, it was the methods the mainstream GOP used to claim victory for the six-term Senator. According to widely-publicized reports, Cochran won the GOP nod only by securing the votes of some 35,000 Democrats who were enticed to come out and vote in the Republican primary. And how did that happen? Well, here's one robo-call used by Cochran to help draw Democratic voters to his side: "If we do nothing, tea party candidate Chris McDaniel wins a nd causes even more problems for President Obama," the message continues. "With your help we can stop this. Please commit to voting against tea party candidate Chris McDaniel next Tuesday and say NO to the tea party!" Avoiding "causing problems" for President Obama hasn't been what the Republican party has been all about these past five years (in fact, the Republican Speaker of the house just sued him and other GOP bodies are calling for impeachment) but apparently, that's the message Senator Cochran wanted going out on his behalf. Also looming large in the race is the issue of voter fraud - another big Republican issue we've been hearing about. Apparently, in Mississippi, it is illegal to vote in the Republican primary if you already voted in the Democratic one. But voter rolls seem to show that many of Sen. Cochran's Democratic party supporters did just that: You can see in this image where three voters on just one particular page of the voter roles took "two bites at the apple" to help the establishment candidate win. Listening to conservative stalwart Sean Hannity on the radio yesterday, you could hear the emotion coming through as Hannity repeatedly called the mainstream GOP tactics " despicable," again and again. Hannity pointed out that using Democrats' votes to defeat a conservative candidate, with a healthy dose of voter fraud and the playing of the "race card" were tactics no party should use. Hannity said a conservative could not in good conscience vote for Cochran and McDaniel pointed out that these so-called RINO ("Republican In Name Only") type candidates made true conservatives feel unwelcome being in the GOP at all. He said the whole thing was "unbecoming of the party of Ronald Reagan. Hannity isn't the only conservative who is upset. Look at what dedicated constitutional conservative Mark Levin had to say about the matter: And former Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is pressing claims of fraud by the establishment GOP: Of course, this all comes on the heels of well-known RINO Eric Cantor being defeated in a primary in Virginia. Unfortunately for conservatives, the Congress did not get the conservative, tea-party message, and put another moderate, compromising candidate in the Republican Majority Leader position. Establishment Republican Kevin McCarthy has shown to have little or no fire on conservative issues like immigration, gun control, abortion or same-sex marriage. One thing is for sure. These types of incidents, where strong conservative candidates are cheated by the Republican party out of their rightful place in leadership are going to continue to rankle conservative and tea-party voters. As Sarah Palin put it: "If Republicans are going to act like Democrats, then what's the use in getting all gung-ho about getting Republicans in there?" Some wonder if perhaps a third party will be needed so that conservatives have candidates who really care about, and are willing to act on, their issues. As Palin points out, establishment Republicans are more compromising conservative principles than they are living them. Radio host Andrew Wilkow - another constitutional conservative, believes that McDaniel should run as an independent and reclaim the seat for the true party: We all have to stay tuned though. McDaniel has refused to concede the race. Perhaps, with skillful lawyering, this conservative aspiring Senator will be able to utilize the civil-justice system to right the wrongs his supporters have identified in the Mississippi election process. That may be the only way for him to take Sen. Cochran's place on the ballot this Fall and give conservatives a reason to come out and vote. Tune into next week's Bordas & Bordas Legal Review where Jamie and I will continue the discussion on this developing political story.

It's a scene we've watched play out hundreds of times on our favorite police drama: someone is arrested for a crime and is then searched. In fact, it's routine procedure in every police department in the country. And it's sensible too. Federal courts have always approved of it. For one thing, conducting an immediate, warrantless search protects police from harm that can be inflicted by any hidden weapons. It also insures that any evidence in the arrestee's possession can be secured and preserved. But now let's add a modern twist. Suppose the arrestee has a cell phone. How far does this power to search go? Can the arresting officer rifle through the call log and the list of names and addresses in the contacts list? What about texts, e-mails and pictures? These were the questions raised in Riley v. California, a case decided yesterday by the Supreme Court of the United States. There were actually two cases heard together, but the more interesting facts come from the Riley case itself. The defendant, Riley, was pulled over for driving with expired license tags. When running Riley's license, it was discovered that his license had been suspended. Riley's car was impounded and then searched, disclosing two handguns located under the hood of the car. Riley was arrested and a personal search was conducted. Police seized a cell phone and found incriminating pictures and videos that tied Riley to an earlier drive-by shooting. It seems to me that a case like this would divide an already divided Supreme Court. Many cases these days are decided on razor-thin votes, with the justices splitting a long well-established ideological lines. But, surprisingly, the Court's decision in this case was unanimously in favor of privacy rights. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, humorously acknowledged how commonplace cell phones have become: "odern cell phones...are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy." Roberts also acknowledged that cell phones, especially "smart phones", place "vast quantities of personal information literally in the hands of individuals." Therefore, this case raised far more complicated issues than the run-of-mill search scenario. Two rationales were offered in an effort to justify cell phone searches. First, it was argued that immediate, warrantless searches were necessary to protect arresting officers. The Chief Justice, however, required little effort to dismiss this argument: "Once an officer has secured a phone and eliminated any potential physical threats,...data on the phone can endanger no one." Second, it was argued that it was critical to search cell phones immediately to preserve the integrity of their data. But the Court rejected this argument too, finding that no real risk existed that cell phone data could be lost or corrupted before a proper search warrant could be obtained. The Court spent a considerable amount of time discussing the privacy interests at stake. Cell phones contain vast quantities of private information including financial records, data disclosing our exact physical movements, and "apps" that can reveal intimate details of our interests, activities, and practically any other aspect of our lives. When weighed against the minimal interference with law enforcement, the Court was convinced that the individual's right of privacy should prevail. As the Chief Justice concluded: "Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans 'the privacies of life.' ...The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police may do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple--get a warrant." This case is a big win for privacy rights. No one would suggest that police could rummage through banker's boxes full of documents just because they were in the car when an arrest was made. Cell phones are no different. The fact that all of this data can now fit in the palm of your hand or your back pocket doesn't make it any less worthy of protection. I submit that the justices--conservative and liberal alike--lined up on the same side because protecting cell phone privacy is right as a matter of law and as a matter of common sense. The outcome of this case wasn't just a win for one man. It was a win for all of us.

This past April, Chief Justice John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas voted to strike down campaign contribution limits. Chief Justice Roberts stated: ". . . we conclude that the aggregate limits on contributions do not further the only governmental interest this Court accepted as legitimate . . . . They instead intrude without justification on a citizen's ability to exercise 'the most fundamental First Amendment activities.'" While I respect Chief Justice Roberts' right to his opinion, there is certainly justification for limits on campaign contributions. Campaign finance laws were enacted to protect us from being bought and paid for by the few hundred mega-rich who garner favor, and let's face it, favors, from the people they pay to get elected. Closing our eyes to quid pro quo corruption, or the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, doesn't make it go away. Corruption will not end with the end of campaign contribution limits. It will only grow as the rich pour money into the coffers of people running for office to uphold their interests, not the middle class, and certainly not those at poverty level. Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. Justice Breyer made no bones about his strong disapproval by stating at the conclusion of his dissent: "The result, as I said at the outset, is a decision that substitutes judges' understandings of how the political process works for the understanding of Congress; that fails to recognize the difference between influence resting upon public opinion and influence bought by money alone; that overturns key precedent; that creates huge loopholes in the law; and that undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform." His words are absolutely true. This ruling will open the door for more and more reform until eventually elections will simply be a farce, and only those with the most money will have a political voice. You can read the decision and dissent here. When Shawn McCutcheon, a major Republican Party donor, said, "Ensuring that citizens are able to contribute to multiple candidates or causes who share their views only provides further support to a system in which 'We the People' hold the ultimate reins of power," he wasn't kidding. The problem with that statement is "We the People" are not billionaires or even millionaires. The majority of "We the People" are everyday working people trying to make a living and feed our families. What will happen to our voice? What power can we possibly hold in electing people that will uphold our interests? Well, for starters, educate yourselves before you vote. Find out who gave what to whom and how much. If you know the monkey on the backs of the people that are put into office, it won't come as a surprise when they do things contrary to your interests and the interests of every other hardworking American. You will know why.

Recently, the U.S. Patent office cancelled several trademark registrations for the Washington Redskins organization because they found the name to be "disparaging to Native Americans." This is a huge step in the right direction in leveraging Washington's owner Dan Snyder into changing the team name to something not so blatantly racist. I use the word leveraging because that is the only way that Mr. Snyder will change the name. No amount of reasoning or pleading will make him understand how offensive his team's moniker really is. Last year the President of the United States said if he were in his shoes and knew the name offended a group of people, he would change the name. 50 United States Senators... fifty... sent a letter to the NFL pleading for them to take action against Washington's organization for its overt use of a racial slur. Larry King recently interviewed Terry Bradshaw and they both agreed the name should be changed. A high school in Oregon has recently changed its name from the Redskins to the Red Hawks. Churches across the nation have urged boycotts of Washington's football team, and the list goes on and on. "Never," that all Dan has to say about it. If the President, half of the sitting U.S Senators, and every living Native American cannot convince you that the name should be changed, then I suppose financial leveraging is the only viable option. Hopefully now that every Tom, Dick, and Harry can print up Washington's logo without worrying about penalty or profit sharing, the message will get through. Nonetheless, it is a pathetic display of moral compass that this is the manner in which the name change had to occur- if it even does. How about this, Mr. Snyder? Walk up to Amanda Blackhorse, the Navajo woman spearheading the lawsuit against Washington's football team, and call her a Redskin to her face. It's just a harmless name that represents your football team's proud heritage right?

By now we've all learned about General Motors' faulty ignition switches, responsible for dozens of deaths (the number is probably much greater) and numerous unnecessary injuries for its customers. Jim Bordas pioneered certain types of automobile product liability cases decades ago, including the first second-impact seatback collapse case won nationwide, in Strope v. Honda, so these reports are something we watch carefully. What interested me most about the news coverage though, is what we didn't hear or read about the history of this issue. GM's own Valukas report is over 300 pages, so it's understandable a lot of reporters didn't read it all. New accounts tended to focus on the summary, where the report chalked up GM's scandalous behavior as its "failure to understand" a "complicated mystery." But when someone tells you something in plain words and you ignore it - that's not a "failure to understand" a "mystery," it's willful blindness that in this case had many, many fatal results. News sources especially liked a yarn GM spun about how, if only the part number had been changed by a lonely, careless engineer, these deaths could have been prevented. You probably heard that one a lot. Amber Marie Rose, killed in 2006 because of GM's faulty switch, did not live long enough to hear GM spin that tale for its present-day PR purposes. If you read through it all, though, you find something interesting. GM did know about the problems with the switch. How did it know? Because trial lawyers told it so. Start on page 103, footnote 419, of the Valukas report, and you realize lawyers told GM what was happening with these vehicles more than ten years ago. More than one lawsuit uncovered the problem and presented detailed evidence to GM of exactly what was happening. But GM didn't listen. Instead, like many large companies, it issued automatic, blanket denials of wrongdoing, and deliberately buried its head in the sand. GM preferred to play to the public, claiming that " alcohol, the failure to wear seatbelts and high speeds " were the real cause of wrecks and deaths caused by its faulty swtich. The Valukas report is replete with how GM and its legal counsel tried to think of anything it could blame these preventable highway deaths on, except the thing it had been sued for: air bags that did not deploy when they should. But GM did settle some of the cases confidentially, while internally refusing to fix the problem. When State Troopers specifically told GM that the ignition switch failures were causing these deaths, GM circular filed the information - engineers and lawyers claim not to have ever heard about documents GM received. Report at 115-116. NHTSA reports also logged complaints against GM for the very problem it claims only now to understand. More lawsuits, from more trial lawyers representing victims followed: GM explained them away and settled confidentially, while refusing to recognize the problem. It gets worse, of course. GM actually made a warranty claim against the switch manufacturer for "ignition switch failures" in 2007, seven years before GM came (sort of) clean about what happened. The Volukas report incuriously reports that "no witness" could be "found" at GM who knew what GM was being paid off for on its warranty claim against Delphi for defective switches, while Americans were dying because of the same defective switches. Report at 128. The Volukas report, of course, was paid for by GM and its investigators were picked by GM. It goes out of its way to say that engineers were "baffled" about events plainly described in lawsuits against the company. The report fairly revels in explaining how people at GM who learned damaging information never shared it, or how computer documents illustrating the defects were never accessed. Four years ago, there had been enough deaths that GM's own lawyers started telling GM it would not only lose the cases, but be subject to large awards of punitive damages. Report at 140-42, 148-149. But we are led to believe by the Report that crippling awards of punitive damages simply do not reach responsible management at GM. The report sums up what happened in classic bureaucratese: GM simply suffered from a "failure to understand" what was happening in its own cars. That's one way to put it. Sinclair wrote that "t is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." GM understood all right, because trial lawyers told it time and time again what was happening. But GM paid its people not to "understand" and it pays well. Or should I say you paid them. We all paid them. The corporation that did this went bankrupt in 2008-09 and the American people bailed them out. While GM busied itself "not understanding" how Americans were being killed in its cars, no matter how many times it was told, We the People covered its empty bank accounts. After taking the bailout, according to Valukas, GM engineers were looking at actual photographs of Americans killed in their cars without any sense of "urgency": Although he does not specifically remember, Sprague believed that fatalities were discussed; the deaths were apparent based on the files shared and pictures shown.681 The urgency of the situation should have been manifest . . . at the meeting, Wachtel, the Senior Manager of Product Investigations, expressed reluctance to take on the issue by opining that the incident rate was not high. Report at 152. If only more Americans had the good sense to be killed in these cars, perhaps Mr. Wachtel could have brought himself to care. But it was not to be. And what does Mr. Wachtel have to say for himself, to the People who paid his lofty salary: "Wachtel denied attending the meeting at all, saying that he was told after the meeting to assign an investigator to the matter." Report at 152-53. At least mainstream reporting captured GM's name for its own indifference: Wachtel's conduct is a demonstration of what Mary Barra described as the "GM nod": When everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action, but then leaves the room and does little. Report at 154. One thing you can learn in the executive summary is this: "hile the issue of the ignition switch passed through numerous hands at GM, from engineers to investigators to lawyers, nobody raised the problem to the highest levels of the company. As a result those in the best position to demand quick answers did not know questions needed to be asked." Report at 4. But this is not a mistake - it's not a "bug" in GM's programming that top people don't hear about problems like this. It's a feature. The top people all want to keep their jobs and to avoid embarrassment. So they are careful to make sure no one who works from them tells them anything they might have to answer for later. Likewise, GM's Valukas report curiously mentions mainly the names of its defense lawyers and corporate lawyers who assisted in the coverup. It never credits the lawyers for victims that brought this matter to GM's attention more than ten years ago. Mary Barra, GM's CEO, has scapegoated some middle managers, endured her Capitol Hill grilling and moved along. But GM doesn't have any intention of crediting the people who first warned it about what it was doing - trial lawyers - because it's going right back to its business of denying the next problem, starting today.

The most recent school shooting in Oregon made its way across my Twitter timeline with the same urgency of a story about the most recent baseball player to be the highest paid at his position. After a full day, I couldn't have told you the exact number of casualties, the names of those who died, or who the shooter was. In fact, I would imagine the majority of people reading this would have a better chance naming every starting quarterback in the NFL than one kid involved in the Oregon shooting. Compare that to Columbine High School, where in 1999 two young men named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire and killed 12 of their fellow students. For weeks, the Columbine story was all we saw on news stations across the country. The names and faces of the victims were etched into our minds, and the shooters' lives unraveled before us. As a nation we truly grieved. Let us fast forward to 2014. School shootings are becoming so commonplace we, without realizing it, brush them off just as we would a mosquito on a soggy summer night. According to The Washington Post, since January 2013 there have been at least 74 other instances of shootings either on or near school grounds. Seventy-Four-in eighteen months. That averages out to one school shooting every 7 days. When I read that figure everything stopped for several moments...and the magnitude of one school shooting per week for the last year and a half sunk in. This is not where I begin to try and sway you one way or the other in the polarizing debate our politicians have created over the 2nd amendment and what it means (or should mean) for gun owners. This is where I plead with you to consider the largest issue at stake here-the safety of our nation's children. Our sons and daughters are currently going to schools where, based on recent statistics, there will be a shooting next week. And the next week, and the next, and the next, until something changes. Please get angry about the amount of violence plaguing America's schools. Take that anger and contact your political representatives-local, state, federal-and let them know it is time to put party lines and egos aside, fix this problem, and protect our children.

On Friday afternoon, a Wheeling jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty in the much anticipated Craig Peacock Trial. The trial, which focused on the death of Wheeling Jesuit student, Kevin Figaniak, who died after a fight with the defendant, was widely publicized. Within minutes of the jury returning a verdict, social media began to explode with posts and comments. Many of the local news outlets posted BREAKING:NEWS updates informing the public of the recent findings. People were quick to chime in with their opinions on the merits of the case and the decision of the jury. Many were stereotyping pipeliners, some poking fun at the justice system, yet others gently reminded the public that they were not part of the jury, and therefore, did not hear the facts of the case as presented. I, like everyone, was deeply saddened by this story. After all, I am a mother, and the thought of a phone call telling me that my college student child had gotten into a street fight and subsequently died, makes me sick to my stomach. I am also young enough to remember college and nights of drinking and partying and just how horribly alcohol can affect people- their minds, their judgment, their memory, their impulses. Nothing about the story of a young person losing their life is justifiable or excusable. Losing a child is one of the most heart wrenching things I can fathom. And when alcohol is involved, sadly, it is also the most preventable. All of these emotions- shock, sadness, confusion, got me thinking about the significant right and responsibility that we all hold as citizens of the United States. Most of the people commenting on the not guilty verdict shared their shock and disbelief that a jury could actually have come to such a conclusion. They were irritated that a life had been lost, and yet, the jury could not find fault in the defendant. It is actually quite amazing how powerful jurors are. Jurors are essential to our existence! They determine the outcome of every jury trial that takes place in our country. They have the power to determine a person's guilt or innocence. The have the authority to set someone free or take away their freedom. The 7 th Amendment of the United States Constitution grants us the right to a jury trial. Just as surely as we have the Freedom of Speech granted to us by the 1 st Amendment, we have a right to a trial by jury granted to us by the 7 th Amendment. This is so very important for many reasons... Whether you are granted a jury trial with a jury of your peers in a criminal case as Peacock was, or whether you are granted a jury trial to determine the negligence and damages caused to you by a civil defendant, the stakes are often very high to both yourself and your family members. What this means is that your future, sometimes your freedom, depends on the 6-12 people that are chosen to act as your jury. These jurors often spend several days away from their jobs, lives, and families to sit and listen to the facts of your case and deliberate to render a decision that ultimately affects your life. Conversely, you hold the power to make decisions that ultimately affect the lives of others as well. It is really quite fascinating to think about... the same people that you pass on the street, the people who share the check-out aisle with you at Walmart or the drive thru line at McDonalds - these are the people that determine your future should you be involved in a lawsuit someday. The 7 th Amendment gives you this wonderful right to a jury trial. It gives jurors this incredible power to decide someone's fate. It gives US amazing influence over the lives of others. And it gives YOU immense and unbelievably important authority to make such important decisions. After all, we are all potential jurors. We never know when we may be called to exercise our civic duty and sit through a trial of facts, deliberate and decide. We aren't sure when we will be called for jury duty, report and make it through jury selection, but one thing is for sure, we are extremely important. When you act as a juror, YOU are vital the person whose case you are hearing. You have an integral and paramount job when you sit on a jury. A job that none of us should take lightly. A job that we understand to be so critically important, and one that we are all grateful that you undertake. Jurors are powerful people, therefore, we are powerful people! Famous philosopher Voltaire once said, "With great power, comes great responsibility." How true are those words!

As I began to wind down from my weekend on Sunday evening, I chose to watch the 63rd annual Miss USA Pageant on NBC. Luckily enough I caught it right at the beginning and I, like many other women my age, was hooked and had to stay up late until the Miss USA 2014 was crowned. The competition was held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the entertainment provided by Florida Georgia Line featuring Nelly added to the show. With 51 women, one representing each state and one representing the District of Columbia all participating in the event, the competition seemed extremely tense. However, what truly amazed me was how the representatives from our tri-state area were three women from nearby towns. I believe that we live in the best area of the United States, and have always been fascinated by the fact that we can be in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in such a short travel time. When the three candidates were announced, their hometowns were all relatively close to my hometown of Wheeling, WV, as Miss West Virginia was a Parkersburg, WV native, Miss Pennsylvania was from Pittsburgh, PA, and Miss Ohio was from Massillon, OH. Although Miss Pennsylvania was the only one to make it into the top 20 before being eliminated in the next round, it is really exciting to know that these women were representing such beautiful towns so close to my home. All three attended local universities as well. Miss West Virginia was a 2011 graduate from West Virginia University with a bachelor of science degree in pre-med, and is currently the Development Manager for West Virginia Rx Card. Miss Pennsylvania is an alumni of the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a marketing coordinator and hopes to become an actress. Miss Ohio is a recent graduate from The Ohio State University and is currently a first year law student who plans on completing law school. All three of these women have hometowns only a short distance from Wheeling, and it's my hope that this will show local young women and girls who wish to compete in the Miss USA Pageant that anything is possible. Knowing that women from local towns achieved their dreams is truly an inspiration, and it showed me that you don't have to be from a big city to make your dreams come true. With the support of their "small town USA" hometowns behind them and their goals set high, any woman can make her wildest dreams come true. In general, The Miss USA Pageant teaches young girls and women all over the country that being an all-around genuine individual makes you the most beautiful person in the world. After all, Miss USA is not only chosen by her beauty on the outside, but by her beauty on the inside.

I recently had the pleasure of presenting the 2014 Public Servant Award at the annual meeting of the West Virginia Association of Justice. WVAJ is a group of trial lawyers in the state of West Virginia who have chosen to represent the interests of injured victims. I have been privileged to be on the Board of Directors for many years. The recipient of the Public Service Award was Joyce McConnell, who has been the Dean of the West Virginia College of Law since 2008. She is well educated, highly respected in her profession and a real God-send to the law school. In addition to teaching and running the law school on a daily basis, Dean McConnell has undertaken a huge expansion at the law school. New classrooms, practice courtrooms and talented faculty members have been added. More importantly, under her leadership, the number of clinics has grown from one to nine. Clinics give law students hands on experience with real cases under the guidance of experienced lawyers. Just as important is the role the clinics play in helping clients in West Virginia who would otherwise not have access to legal services. Added clinics include those that deal with Children and Families, Domestic Violence, Land Use and Sustainable Development, the Innocence Project (representing those wrongly convicted of crimes who are serving time in prison), Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Immigration, Taxpayer Advocacy, Veterans Assistance and United States Supreme Court cases. Dean McConnell has made the College of Law a place all West Virginians can point to with pride. If you see her, be sure to offer her your congratulations!