Events next week - council election and new court of appeals judge

On Tuesday, the 28th Circuit will select a new representative to the State Bar Council. Kurt Pomrenke is a candidate from Bristol. The current council is shown here. There are a lot of good people on Bar Council, yet somehow most lawyers I've ever heard speak of it are mostly alienated from and by the Council's activities - the common theme is that the Council is dominated by resume building lawyers from the cities who want to use it as some kind of political springboard, so they are always looking for ways to go about doing good. The core activities of the State Bar are ethics, discipline, and admissions. On ethics, the recent case dealing with lawyer advertising Judge Richard Williams was highly critical of Bar Council, as described here.

On Wednesday, Elizabeth McClanahan will be sworn in as a new member of the Virginia Court of Appeals, at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon. Ms. McClanahan is an accomplished lawyer with expertise in mineral law, particularly coalbed methane. Most recently, she has been the No. 2 in the Attorney General's office. Her biography from the AG website is here. She is the second lawyer from the Penn Stuart firm selected as judge in recent years, U.S. District Court Judge James P. Jones is the other.

The appellate jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals includes the following, as listed here:

1. Any final decision of a circuit court on appeal from (i) a decision of an administrative agency, or (ii) a grievance hearing decision issued pursuant to § 2.2-3005;
2. Any final decision of the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission;
3. Any final judgment, order, or decree of a circuit court involving:
a. Affirmance or annulment of a marriage;
b. Divorce;
c. Custody;
d. Spousal or child support;
e. The control or disposition of a child;
f. Any other domestic relations matter arising under Title 16.1 or Title 20;
g. Adoption under Chapter 12 (§ 63.2-1200 et seq.) of Title 63.2; or
h. A final grievance hearing decision issued pursuant to subsection B of § 2.2-3007.
4. Any interlocutory decree or order entered in any of the cases listed in this section (i) granting, dissolving, or denying an injunction or (ii) adjudicating the principles of a cause.