Legal Malpractice

West Virginia, Mandatory Disclosure of Legal Malpractice Insurance

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

This report from the West Virginia Record is an eye-opener on politics and judicial elections.  The tip of the iceberg is an aside in which an attorney has been suspended for failing to disclose whether he has legal malpractice insurance.  The story is mulit-facited, however:

"MORGANTOWN - E-mails in state Supreme Court candidate Bob Bastress' West Virginia University College of Law account show he and others speculating on the race.

"As for the campaign, it has heated up," Bastress, a WVU law professor, wrote to a former colleague in a Feb. 8 e-mail. "The stuff on Spike (Chief Justice Maynard) has made it interesting, and the rumors are heavy (some from apparently knowledgeable sources) that a lot more is coming."

The exchange was with Emily Spieler, dean of the Northeastern University College of Law in Boston. She is a former WVU law professor. The subject line of the e-mail was "Dean search," and part of it was redacted by WVU.

The West Virginia Record had requested phone and fax records for Bastress since Nov. 1, and e-mail records since Nov. 1 of campaign-related correspondence.

The e-mails show that Bastress has talked to other WVU faculty members, students and others about helping on his campaign, had official campaign literature sent to his law school e-mail account, sought donations and communicated with the media about the election and discussed the campaign with current state Supreme Court Justice Larry Starcher. State law prohibits the use of public resources to run a political campaign.

Phone and fax records, according to WVU's FOIA reply, only are kept for long-distance calls and faxes. Bastress had no long-distance calls or faxes, according to WVU. Bastress also does not have a state-issued cell phone, WVU said.

"The feds have moved in, apparently," Bastress continued in his e-mail to Spieler. "I've also been informed another development is coming in the next week. We'll see. Spike could implode at any time, and he is certainly wounded enough already to have made a race of it. ...

"Responses are positive (which means next to nothing), but raising money continues to be a struggle."

Spieler replied asking about the other candidates.

"The other two candidates are Margaret Workman and Menis Ketchum," Bastress replied. "Menis, as you might recall, is a very successful trial lawyer in Huntington and will dump a lot of money into the campaign."

Spieler again replied.

"Bad news about Ketchum," she wrote. "Sorry."

Another exchange that was forwarded to Bastress was between filmmaker Wayne Ewing and Michael C. Farber, a Sutton attorney who currently is suspended for failure to pay dues and to disclose whether he carries malpractice insurance as well as an ethics violation. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).