"Price of Justice" Author to Speak on Campus March 24

The author of Fairmont State University’s Common Read for the 2014-2015 academic year, “The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption,” will speak on campus on Tuesday, March 24.

Author Laurence Leamer will discuss his nonfiction legal thriller that traces the 14-year struggle of two lawyers to bring Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy, to justice. The presentation, which is open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. in Colebank Hall on Tuesday, March 24. Hosted by the Common Book Committee and the Office of Student Activities, the event also will include a panel discussion with three people directly involved in the action of “The Price of Justice”: Tonya Hatfield, Bruce Stanley and Justice Larry Starcher.

John Grisham provided praise for the book: “Laurence Leamer does a superb job of condensing this 15-year legal brawl into a highly readable and entertaining narrative.  Greed, arrogance, injustice, corruption -- it has it all, and, sadly, it’s all true.  Fortunately, it also has some heroes.  This is a book I wish I had written.”

Leamer and Starcher visited campus in October 2014 for a roundtable discussion about the book with faculty and staff. In February, Stanley visited Communication, Sociology and Criminal Justice classes at Fairmont State and spoke about his legal battle.

“Dr. Gregory T. Hinton has been instrumental in putting together the panel. He’s spent an enormous amount of time and energy contacting the presenters and coordinating faculty workshops,” said Dr. J. Robert Baker, former Co-Chair of the University’s Common Book Committee.

For more information about the book, visit the Libraries of FSU and Pierpont guide at http://guides.library.fairmontstate.edu/justice.

Laurence Leamer

A graduate of Antioch College and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal, Leamer was a Ford Fellow in International Development at the University of Oregon and an International Fellow at Columbia University. At the Columbia University School of Journalism, Leamer was named a Pulitzer International Fellow, and upon graduation became an associate editor at Newsweek. After leaving that position, he began writing magazine articles for many publications, including Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, New York, Playboy and The Washingtonian. Leamer worked incognito in a West Virginia coal mine and covered the war in Bangladesh for Harper's. That article won a citation from the Overseas Press Club for “Best Magazine Reporting.”

Leamer’s other books include the following: “Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger”; “Playing for Keeps in Washington”; “Ascent: The Spiritual and Physical Quest of Willi Unsoeld”; “Make-Believe: The Story of Nancy & Ronald Reagan”; “King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson”; “The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family”; “The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963”; “Sons of Camelot: The Fate of an American Dynasty”; “Three Chords and the Truth”; “Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach”; and “As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman.” For more information about Leamer, visit http://www.leamer.com/.

Bruce Stanley

Born and raised in the coalfields of southern West Virginia, Bruce Stanley worked his way through school, graduating from the West Virginia University College of Arts and Sciences and from the West Virginia University College of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of Volume 91 of the West Virginia Law Review. He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Prior to starting his own firm, he was a partner in the Pittsburgh office of global law firm Reed Smith LLP.

Stanley has tried a number of jury cases to verdict in state and federal courts. Among the high profile cases in which he has been involved is Caperton v. Massey, which resulted in a landmark opinion issued by the Supreme Court of the United States on the issue of campaign spending and judicial recusal. In the Aracoma mine fire litigation, he and Tonya Hatfield represented the widows and estates of two coal miners who died in a tragic underground mine fire, ultimately achieving significant settlements from both the mine operator and the United States.

Stanley has also handled a number of complex arbitrations before the American Arbitration Association and the International Chamber of Commerce. He volunteered for many years as an adjunct lecturer at the West Virginia University College of Law, teaching a three credit hour course on construction law topics. He also served for three years on the West Virginia University College of Law Development Council. He is a member of the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the area of commercial litigation.  He was a 2012 finalist for Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year Award.

Tonya L. Hatfield

Tonya L. (Mounts) Hatfield was born in Pike County, Ky., but was raised in the small town of Gilbert, W.Va.  She is a coal miner’s daughter and the wife of a coal miner.

After graduating from Gilbert High School, she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Berea College in 1991, with a minor in political science. Hatfield graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1995 and began her 20-year career as a lawyer practicing in Lexington, in a small plaintiff’s firm. Four years later, she moved to Charleston to join a defense firm, where she handled insurance bad faith, medical negligence and automobile accident cases. A year later, she returned to her hometown, ultimately opening her own solo practice. In her practice, she handled domestic relations, criminal law defense, general civil litigation from contract and property disputes to insurance litigation and a variety of personal injury cases; she also prepared wills, deeds and various agreements.

When the plaintiff in the Aracoma Alma Mine accident case walked into Hatfield’s office, the fact of her representation was closely monitored by other attorneys. She knew that she needed help with a case of that magnitude. Coincidentally, a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dennis Roddy, appeared that week at her law office to gather information for an article he was writing about the tragedy. Shortly after the article was published, Bruce Stanley of Reed Smith in Pittsburgh phoned Hatfield to offer his assistance with the case. Having already decided she needed the assistance of a big firm and knowing that Stanley had already litigated against Massey and was defending Massey's appeal of a $50 million dollar jury award arising out of a Boone County case, choosing him as co-counsel was an easy decision. Hatfield realized that with Reed Smith’s backing, Stanley would be a formidable adversary for Massey Energy and its CEO.      

Since the Aracoma case, Stanley and Hatfield have teamed up in other cases against the United States Government on behalf of the widows for mistakes made by the offices of the MHSA and in a federal case on behalf of an injured coal miner against the Norfolk Southern Railway Company; they obtained a $2.9 million jury verdict in January 2013 that is currently on appeal before the 4th Circuit. Hatfield and her husband recently moved across the river to Inez, Ky., where she still practices law, handling mostly West Virginia cases. 

Justice Larry V. Starcher

Larry V. Starcher served as a Justice on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, from 1997 to 2008, serving as the Court’s Chief Justice in 1999 and 2003.  He also served as a Monongalia County Circuit Court Judge from 1977 to 1996, 18 years as the Court’s Chief Judge.  Justice Starcher retired from the Supreme Court at the end of 2008 and became a Senior Status Justice/Judge.

Since January 2009, Starcher has served as a Lecturer in Law at the West Virginia University College of Law, where he now teaches trial advocacy and pre-trial litigation classes and coaches inter-scholastic competition trial teams. He also currently serves the Supreme Court as a Senior Status Justice/Judge and continues to serve as an active trial court judge in many state counties. 

Prior to his career as a jurist, Starcher was the Director of the North Central West Virginia Legal Aid Society, a private lawyer and was an Assistant to the West Virginia University Vice-President for Off-Campus Education.

As a circuit judge he was active in the area of juvenile justice, including establishing an alternative learning center for youth at risk and a youth shelter. He also pioneered the use of work-release and community service as punishment for non-violent offenders. As a circuit judge he was assigned by the Supreme Court to several jail/prison condition law suits, and in one case reduced the population of a State prison from 829 to 550. As a trial judge he presided over 20,000 asbestos injury cases and sat as judge on a six-month state buildings asbestos trial. He also was the President of the West Virginia Judicial Association in 1992-1993.

On the Supreme Court as Chief Justice he promoted diversity in employment of staff in the judiciary; developed a circuit judge law clerk program; worked for improved court facilities; and developed a public trust and confidence in the judiciary commission, a mental hygiene commission, a court technology summit, a self-represented litigants task force, a court library improvements committee and reactivated the gender fairness task force.

Starcher has authored several hundred reported court opinions and many articles, including “Cameras in the Courts - A Revival in West Virginia and the Nation,” West Virginia Law Review (1982), “Choosing West Virginia’s Judges,” Quinnipac Law Review (2001), and “A Judicial Philosophy: People-Oriented Justice,” West Virginia Law Review (2009).

Office of Student ActivitiesCommon ReadLaurence LeamerThe Price of JusticeBruce StanleyTonya HatfieldLarry StarcherGregory HintonJ. Robert Baker