Of Counsel
Mike concentrates on family law, employment law and, as a mediator and arbitrator, on alternative dispute resolution.
In the fall of 2014, Mike retired as a Kanawha County family law judge shortly before he joined Ray, Winton & Kelley. As a family law judge, he was the first West Virginia judge to oversee a specialized domestic violence court. After being appointed a family law master in 1999, Mike became a family court judge in 2001 as a result of voters’ approval of a 2000 constitutional amendment to create family courts. He was elected to the position in 2000 and again in 2008. In 2012, the West Virginia Supreme Court created the state’s first specialized domestic violence court and selected Mike to oversee it.
From 1991 to 1999, Mike worked in private practice in Charleston. He specialized in employment and civil rights law, the rights of the disabled and education law. Prior to that, he worked and as the deputy attorney general for the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office, for the state Supreme Court and for various nonprofit legal services agencies.