The VLW Blog

The full US Senate has confirmed the nomination of Virginia Supreme Court Justice  Steven Agee to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has this news release. The Roanoke Times has additional perspective.

[Read more →]

Hardly out the door of his office as Western Virginia’s federal prosecutor, John Brownlee is now officially in the race for Virginia attorney general. The Roanoke Times says Brownlee is styling himself “Virginia’s conservative prosecutor.” He faces patent lawyer and Virginia Senator Ken Cuccinelli in his bid for the Republican nomination. Cuccinelli tells us, “Mr. [...]

[Read more →]

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has removed its bar to Virginia’s planned execution of Danville murderer Christopher Emmett. The move sharpens the focus on the 4th Circuit, which is considering Emmett’s challenge to the method of execution.

[Read more →]

West has embarked on publication of independent “white papers” on topics of legal interest, and one of the first is a piece by Virginia legal scholar Rod Smolla (W&L Law Dean, former UR Law Dean) on Viacom v. Google. The case involves issues that arise from the proliferation of “homemade” videos on the internet, many [...]

[Read more →]

Lawyers may be known by the conventions they attend, and conventioneering lawyers know well the Appalachian highland resorts known as the Greenbrier and the Homestead. Today, the Roanoke Times reports, labor troubles or the threat thereof have been cutting business for the Greenbrier, with the Homestead enjoying the benefit of relocated meetings.

[Read more →]

Is the “high crime area” label the new “racial profiling” in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in Virginia? In the late ’90s, the rubric of “racial profiling” came under suspicion as a poorly disguised excuse for discrimination against minorities. At a 1999 panel program at the annual Virginia State Bar meeting on profiling in traffic stops, Norfolk [...]

[Read more →]

An e-mail early this morning from former U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said only that he is having a press conference tomorrow “to announce his decision regarding his potential candidacy for attorney general for the commonwealth of Virginia.” There’s a subtle hint at the top of the e-mail, however: A campaign logo that says “John Brownlee [...]

[Read more →]

Two enterprising West Virginia lawyers are soliciting clients to sue West Virginia University, claiming that the school’s decision to award a degree to an under-qualified but well-connected candidate has diminished the value of its degrees across the board. The Huntington Herald-Dispatch has the story.

[Read more →]

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday unanimously reported to the full Senate the nomination of Virginia Supreme Court Justice Steven Agee to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) proclaimed, “The Senate is now poised to confirm Agee before the Memorial Day recess, breaking through years of delay….” Leahy did not [...]

[Read more →]

Law enforcement officers might dream of headlines about catching public enemies and saving citizens from harm. Unfortunately, those are not the headlines coming out out about Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Deputy Ronald Anderson. His latest appearance in the news columns concerns his recent arrest in North Carolina for driving while impaired. It was only two months [...]

[Read more →]