Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) A Virginia Beach judge and former school board chairman has died less than two weeks after being involved in a car accident. Norfolk police announced that Virginia Beach District Judge Robert Hagans Jr. died Jan. 17 from ...

ROANOKE (AP) An attorney says Mountain Valley Pipeline can’t invoke eminent domain to remove two tree-sitters protesting on land where they have no legal ownership interest. The argument was presented Jan. 16 in a court filing by attorney John Fishwick ...

(AP) Virginia will continue to have one of the weakest seat-belt laws in the country after a Senate committee killed a bill to require rear-seat passengers in a motor vehicle to wear safety belts and to make violating the state’s ...

A litigant’s history of filing frivolous pleadings in other courts could be considered in a sanctions motion if a General Assembly proposal is adopted. A House Courts subcommittee voted 6-2 this month to recommend reporting House Bill 1624. The bill ...

(AP)  The Court of Appeals of Virginia has upheld a state law banning sex with an animal. The court on Jan. 15 affirmed the 2017 conviction of Arthur Anderson Warren, who used his cellphone to record video of encounters he ...

U.S. District Judge M. Hannah Lauck will receive the 2019 Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award from the VSB Criminal Law Section on Feb. 8 at the Criminal Law Seminar in Williamsburg. The Carrico award was named for the former Supreme Court of ...

VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) A special needs student’s mother is suing after a principal and teacher were cleared of assault charges in Virginia Beach. Seven-year-old Eric Chapman testified in March that he had been dragged from a classroom at Rosemont Elementary ...

A federal judge says a friend-of-the-court brief could be helpful in deciding whether to evict two tree-sitters trying to block a natural gas pipeline project in Western Virginia. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon credited the contention of two advocates in the ...

(AP) Attorney General Mark Herring has denounced a wide-ranging review of his office by the state legislature’s watchdog agency as a politically motivated witch hunt. The Democratic attorney general blasted the review as “baseless” and an “inquisition.” He also said ...

A state Senate committee has advanced a proposal to add a 12th general district judgeship in Fairfax County, but legislators caution that creating a slot is not the same thing as funding it. Two Fairfax judges appeared Jan. 14 before ...