CHARLESTON – West Virginia Supreme Court Administrative Director Gary L. Johnson is stepping down from the job at the end of the month.
Barbara Allen, who served as the Court Administrative Director from 2001 to 2002, has been hired as the interim director while the Supreme Court conducts a search for a permanent replacement.
Johnson took the job last March. He had served as a circuit judge in Nicholas County from 1992 to 2016.
“Judge Johnson has had a long and distinguished career. We appreciate his service, and we all wish him well,” Chief Justice Margaret L. Workman said in a press release. “The Court is immensely grateful that Barbara Allen has agreed to come out of semi-retirement to serve on an interim basis.
"Her prior experience as Administrative Director, as well as experience throughout a long and outstanding legal career, will give us a solid base while we search for a permanent director.”
Johnson said he appreciated the opportunity.
“I have found my work here to be both challenging and fulfilling," he said. "I look forward to exploring other opportunities for public service."
Allen is a 1968 graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia and a 1978 graduate of West Virginia University College of Law, where she was Order of the Coif and the first woman to win the Baker Cup competition for appellate advocacy.
After law school, she was a law clerk for Judge K.K. Hall of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for one year. She then was in private practice until 1997 and has tried cases all over West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
She served as Managing Deputy Attorney General from 1997 until 2012 under Darrell McGraw, except for her tenure as Supreme Court Administrative Director.
At the Attorney General’s Office, she supervised the appellate; tax, arts and education; and civil rights divisions and briefed and argued scores of cases before the West Virginia Supreme Court. In 2013, she was a clerk for Workman.
As a circuit judge, Johnson was chairman of the West Virginia Court Improvement Program Oversight Board for 16 years. In 1999, he was declared an “Angel in Adoption" by the United States Congress and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
In 2009, he received the Alliance for Children’s West Virginia Leader for Children Award; the Commissioner's Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families; and a Purple Ribbon Award from the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence. He also is a recipient of the 1998 Protection of Children Award from the Nicholas County Family Resource Network and Nicholas/Webster Foster Parent Association, the 2008 Extra Mile Award from the West Virginia Children’s Justice Task Force, and the 2013 Steward of Unity Award from the West Virginia Child Care Association.
Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration from West Virginia University before working as the state's first flood insurance coordinator. After a year with Region Four Planning and Development Council, Judge Johnson entered West Virginia University College of Law. He received his law degree in 1980. As a private attorney, he served as Richwood's municipal judge and was elected to a four-year term as Nicholas County prosecutor in 1985.