Supreme Court welcomes new bar admissions administrator

CHARLESTON–The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has hired a Charleston attorney to be the new Bar Admissions Administrator, the first time a lawyer will fill that position.

Madeleine H. Johnson, a law clerk for Senior U.S. District Judge David A. Faber and a former Assistant Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney, will begin work in May.

Johnson is a 2004 graduate of West Virginia University College of Law, where she was manuscript editor of the West Virginia Law Review. She received a bachelor's degree in German from West Virginia University in 2000.

"We are delighted that Ms. Johnson has accepted the job and look forward to her bringing a new level of legal professionalism to the position," Chief Justice Robin Jean Davis said. "The job of bar admissions administrator is an important, one not only to the court but to the entire state, and the other justices and I felt it was time for a lawyer to fill the role."

The bar admissions administrator works with the West Virginia Board of Law Examiners to accept applications from people who want to take the West Virginia bar examination, administers the bar examination, and processes applications from attorneys in other states who want to be admitted to the practice of law in West Virginia by reciprocity.

The Board of Law Examiners consists of seven members of the West Virginia State Bar who are appointed by the Supreme Court of Appeals.