.jpg)
New WVAJ President Bernie Layne practices with the firm of Mani, Ellis and Layne
Charleston Attorney Named New West Virginia Association for Justice President
Charleston, W.Va. – Charleston attorney Bernie Layne was elected president of the West Virginia Association for Justice at the organization’s annual convention in Charleston earlier in June. Layne is a partner with the Charleston firm of Mani, Ellis and Layne.
“It is a great privilege to serve as president of the West Virginia Association for Justice. For more than 50 years, our association has represented the very best attorneys practicing in West Virginia, and it has led the effort to promote justice in our courtrooms and protect the rights of every West Virginian. Some of our past presidents have been among the best lawyers who have ever practiced in our state, and it is an honor that WVAJ’s members have elected me to follow in their footsteps,” said Layne.
Originally from Williamson and raised in Parkersburg, Layne’s parents instilled in him from an early age the importance of education and hard work.
“My parents were raised in poverty in southern West Virginia coal communities. They knew and understood the challenges their families and other families faced and taught me and my sisters the importance of hard work and of helping others.”
Layne’s father, Bernard E. Layne Jr. who was a sportswriter with the Williamson Daily News, also taught his fiercely competitive son the love of sports. A high school basketball and baseball player, Layne received a baseball scholarship from the University of Charleston, where he majored in political science. After a torn rotator cuff and surgery ended his dream of playing professional baseball, Layne doubled his effort in the classroom and turned his competitive spirit to achieving in other areas. Students at the university elected him student body president. His senior thesis on the problems created by corrupt and illegal strip mining practices in southern West Virginia won a statewide award in the area of public policy law. In 1992, Layne received the university’s Ivor S. Boiarsky Award, which recognizes the top political science student in the graduating class, and was chosen by the administration to deliver the commencement address for his class.
After earning an M. A. in Sociology from Ohio University, Layne worked for a year in southern West Virginia with the Title 19 Medicaid Waiver program, assisting the elderly and catastrophically injured workers. He saw firsthand the legal hurdles that these families faced—and how they couldn’t overcome them because they could not afford legal assistance.
“I was working with senior citizens, the handicapped and the disabled, some of the most vulnerable citizens in society who needed our help and support the most. That is the most basic form of social justice, but there was no justice for them because they didn’t have the money to challenge the system,” said Layne.
For someone who had thought about being a lawyer since he was 10, his work that year sealed his decision to go to law school.
“Even as a kid I was acutely aware that some things just weren’t right, and that someone needed to fix it. My grandfather choked to death in a nursing home while he was restrained to the bed. My mom was sexually harassed at work. There were a lot of other personal incidents along the way that made me believe that maybe I could help someone if I was a lawyer,” said Layne.
After earning his J. D. from the University of Dayton College of Law in 1999, Layne returned to West Virginia and began his legal practice with the Charleston law firm of John E. Sutter. He has been a partner with Mani, Ellis and Layne since 2007. Layne has served on the WVAJ Board of Governors for more than a decade and earned the association’s distinguished service award in 2005. He was named to the executive committee in 2006. Always a fierce competitor and overachiever, Layne is now one of the youngest presidents in the association’s history.
From the beginning of his legal career, Layne has built his practice representing individuals injured or killed because corporations put their own profits ahead of worker and consumer safety. This work included representing injured plant workers and pipe fitters against asbestos manufacturers that kept the dangerous product on the market for decades after learning that it caused cancer. He also represented miners and their families following accidents where the mining companies knowingly put their workers in unsafe conditions. His other practice areas include helping permanently disabled workers receive Social Security disability benefits, wrongful death cases involving children, and representing people injured by medical errors or dangerous products. Usually, this means that Layne is representing average West Virginia citizens against some of the biggest corporations in the country—and it stokes the competitive fires Layne showed on the pitcher’s mound and in the classroom.
“I enjoy representing people who are up against big insurance companies and corporate interests. It’s David versus Goliath. I love being on the side not necessarily picked to win, and I hate to lose,” said Layne. “More important than that, however, is that when I represent these workers, consumers and families, I am ensuring that they have an equal voice in our courtroom regardless of where they’re from or how much money they have. It’s the most important thing I do.”
In 2012, Layne was named to the University of Charleston’s Board of Governors. He served as a member of the West Virginia Bar’s Judicial Campaign Advertising Committee and is a past member of the Putnam County Career and Technical Center’s Healthcare Advisory Board.
Layne and his wife, Melissa, have been married 12 years. Melissa Layne is a professor of nursing at the University of Charleston. They have a 9-year-old daughter, Mackenzie.
WVAJ AFFINITY PARTNERS
.jpg)
