A new report from the West Virginia Supreme Court's Commission on the Future of the Practice of Law finds the number of attorneys in the state has dropped 9.29 percent over 12 years while child abuse and neglect cases rose more than a third. Forty-six of the state's 55 counties now qualify as "legal deserts" under the American Bar Association's standard of fewer than one lawyer per 1,000 residents.
Chief Justice Haley Bunn says judges can't schedule hearings because there aren't enough attorneys to represent everyone who needs it, and about a quarter of private-practice lawyers plan to retire within five years. The state's statutory rate for court-appointed work is $60 an hour out of court and $80 in court.
Bunn's proposed fixes include recruiting law students, partnering with WVU's law school, high school mock trials, and revisiting the bar exam's passing score — alongside her insistence that AI will not be replacing courtroom lawyers anytime soon.
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