CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals granted the full admission to practice law for a Hamlin woman despite the West Virginia Board of Law Examiner's recommendation against it.
Tammy Howell graduated from the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich., in 2010. She passed the July 2011 West Virginia Bar Examination and got a job with Judge Jay Hoke, a judge of the 25th Judicial Circuit, with whom she remains employed.
Howell's problems practicing law began when she was forced to file bankruptcy in May 2010 to clear $351,640 in debt accrued funding her future husband's construction business.
Following an interview with the board in September 2012, the court granted Howell a conditional 2-year admission. At the time, she and her husband kept the construction business going.
Howell's conditional admission was extended two more years, but she fell into further tax debt from the business and from her student loans. That prompted another interview with the board and another extension of the conditional admission.
On July 1, 2017, she submitted a detailed repayment plan to the board, which told her she had to begin repayment of her student loans by Oct. 25, 2017, and must remain current on all of her tax payments.
She did so, but even so, on Nov. 22, the board told her it would not recommend that she be admitted to practice law in West Virginia.
The majority of the board voted to recommend to the Supreme Court that it deny Howell's admission to the practice of law and pointed to her ongoing financial difficulties throughout her five-year conditional admission period.
Howell filed exceptions before the court to the West Virginia Board of Law Examiners' Oct. 3, 2018, decision recommending denial of her admission to the West Virginia State Bar after conditional admission.
"Although petitioner’s fiscal responsibility during each of her periods of conditional admission has not been perfect, she has not engaged in any conduct that indicates she would pose a risk to her clients or to the public," the court wrote in its decision. "Likewise, the totality of the circumstances regarding petitioner’s past and present financial situation does not render her unfit to engage in the practice of law."
The court said the record demonstrates that Howell is making significant progress to satisfy all outstanding debts in compliance with the conditions imposed by the board and granted Howell full admission.
"Petitioner Tammy Howell has satisfied the terms of her conditional admission, and the conditions are hereby lifted on her license to practice law in the courts of the State of West Virginia, and she is granted full admission," the Sept. 9 decision said.
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals case No: 18-0964