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172 W. Va. 422

306 S.E.2d 233

State Ex Rel. Quelch v. Daugherty

West Virginia Supreme Court

Decided July 27, 1983

West Virginia Supreme Court · decided 1983-07-27

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1983-07-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently October 2018 · most notably 193 W. Va. 20 - State Ex Rel. Frazier v. Meadows (1994), 173 W. Va. 210 - Torbett v. Wheeling Dollar Savings & Trust Co. (1984)

27 state decisions

1401983199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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NEELY, Justice,

¶1concurring:

¶2I concur in the result in this case but for slightly different reasons than those stated by the majority. The 1981 amendment to W.Va.Code, 30-2-1 [1972] did not have the effect of requiring a bar examination of graduates of West Virginia University’s College of Law. The amendment merely eliminated the time-honored, statutory diploma privilege that was enacted by the Legislature when it was thought that the Legislature could control certain aspects of the practice of law.

¶3*426I do not agree with the majority that all aspects of the practice of law in West Virginia are within the exclusive control of the Supreme Court of Appeals. In this regard I fail to find the recent cases of this Court particularly persuasive. Nemo debet esse judex in propria causa. In my opinion, a legislative act requiring a bar examination would be within the prerogative of the Legislature under W.Va. Const., art. VIII, §§ 1 and 3. However, the effect of the 1981 legislative amendment to Code, 30-2-1 [1972] that is now in question was not to require a bar examination of graduates of the West Virginia University College of Law, but rather to eliminate the legislatively mandated diploma privilege.

¶4Our Rule 1.020 allows graduates of the College of Law to be admitted to practice without examination. Since the Legislature has not attempted to invalidate our Rule 1.020, I see no reason that Rule 1.020 should not remain in force and effect. Had the Legislature intended to require a bar examination they would have said so. In fact, the Legislature merely placed this question within the Court’s discretion.

¶5I despise bureaucratic requirements that demand that people perform vain acts. In a state like West Virginia where we have a competent law school specializing in West Virginia law, a bar examination becomes nothing but a nuisance. Consequently, I am pleased to leave the diploma privilege in place, but I believe that it is within the legislative prerogative to require by a specific statute that all candidates for admission to the bar take a bar examination.

¶6Finally, my understanding of this matter is instructed by two great principles: First, one should always attempt to avoid the inveterate human compulsion to make the other man’s life miserable for no ostensible reason; and second, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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