CHARLESTON – Meshea Poore is looking forward to her time as the president of the West Virginia State Bar Association.
Poore said all walks of life are represented in the state bar—there are attorneys in their first year and attorneys who have more than 55 years of experience.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” she said. “You see so many different people and how they do things—and they’re coming together.”
Poore said the Board of Governors has been working closely together to mesh their ideas and work on their goals for the coming year.
“We all work closely together,” she said. “Even before you’re president, you’re the president-elect and you work with the Board getting ready for when you take your position.”
Poore said they started working on rural scholarships at the law school—which gives students an opportunity to attend law school when they commit to practice law in a rural area of the state for at least three years.
“There are so many rural areas across the state that don’t have any attorney presence,” she said. “This will help those citizens have access to an attorney.”
Poore said it is an honor to be the president of the state bar.
“I’m very honored and excited,” she said. “I want to make sure we are serving the state and our communities.”
Poore said she wants to focus on bringing attorneys across the state together and to feel connected.
Poore, 41, is the first black woman to be president of the state bar.
When Poore was sworn in as president, she said it matters—whether you believe it to be true or not—to see someone that looks like you in the role that you possibly could be in someday.
At her swearing in, Poore said she was the only attorney in her family and, for a long time, she was the only person to graduate college in her family. Her mother went back to school later and earned a college degree.
Poore grew up on Charleston’s West Side and attended Stonewall Jackson Middle School and Capital High School. She then attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. and earned her law degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.
For four years, beginning in 2010, she served as a member of the state House of Delegates from the 37th District.