Buchanan County is a United States county in far western Virginia, the only county in the state to border both West Virginia and Kentucky. The county is part of the Southwest Virginia region and lies in the rugged Appalachian Plateau portion of the Appalachian Mountains. Its county seat is Grundy.
Grundy is a town in Buchanan County, Virginia, United States, an area located within the Appalachian Mountains region. It is the county seat of Buchanan County. The town is home to the Appalachian School of Law. The population was 875 as of the 2020 census.
Lawrence Douglas Wilder is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He was the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since the Reconstruction era, and the first African American ever elected as governor. He is currently a professor at the eponymous Wilder School at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Cecil Harland Underwood was an American Republican Party politician from West Virginia, known for the length of his career.
Emory & Henry College is a private liberal arts college in Emory, Virginia. The campus comprises 335 acres (1.36 km2) of Washington County, which is part of the Appalachian highlands of Southwest Virginia. Founded in 1836, Emory & Henry College is the oldest institution of higher learning in Southwest Virginia.
Gene Ray Nichol, Jr. was the twenty-sixth president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. He succeeded Timothy J. Sullivan and officially served from July 1, 2005, to February 12, 2008. It was the shortest tenure for a William & Mary president since the Civil War. During each year of his presidency, however, the college continued to break its own application records.
The Appalachian School of Law (ASL) is private law school in Grundy, Virginia. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and offers a three-year Juris Doctor degree to approximately 128 full-time students. The school was founded in 1994 and admitted its first class of students in August 1997. ASL was started and brought to Buchanan County, Virginia as a tool of economic development for the region. ASL emphasizes professional responsibility and alternative dispute resolution in its curriculum and requires students to complete 25 hours of community service per semester in order to graduate. Each student is also required to complete an externship before graduation. According to ASL's 2021 ABA-required disclosures, 31% of the Class of 2020 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. ASL was also the site of a triple homicide that took place on January 16, 2002.
John Marshall Coleman is an American lawyer and Republican politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly during the 1970s. He was the first Republican elected as Attorney General of Virginia since Reconstruction and served 1978–1982, although his later campaigns for Governor of Virginia and U.S. Senate proved unsuccessful.
Roger Keith Coleman was a convicted murderer and rapist from Grundy, Virginia who was executed for the rape and murder in March 1981 of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. That day, he had been laid off from work.
The University of Richmond School of Law is the law school of the University of Richmond, a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond Law is ranked 52nd (tie) in the US by US News, among the top five value law schools by the National Jurist, and one of the Princeton Review's 167 Best Law Schools of 2018.
Southwest Virginia, often abbreviated as SWVA, is a mountainous region of Virginia in the westernmost part of the commonwealth. Located within the broader region of western Virginia, Southwest Virginia has been defined alternatively as all Virginia counties on the Appalachian Plateau, all Virginia counties west of the Eastern Continental Divide, or at its greatest expanse, as far east as Blacksburg and Roanoke. Another geographic categorization of the region places it as those counties within the Tennessee River watershed. Regardless of how borders are drawn, Southwest Virginia differs from the rest of the commonwealth in that its culture is more closely associated with Appalachia than the other regions of Virginia. Historically, the region has been and remains a rural area, but in the 20th century, coal mining became an important part of its economy. With the decline in the number of coal jobs and the decline of tobacco as a cash crop, Southwest Virginia is increasingly turning to tourism as a source of economic development. Collectively, Southwest Virginia's craft, music, agritourism and outdoor recreation are referred to as the region's "creative economy."
Brian Joseph Moran is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party. He served as Virginia Secretary of Public Safety from 2014 to 2022, and was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1996 until 2008, representing Northern Virginia's 46th district.
John Dubois served as the third bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York from 1826 until his death in 1842. He was the first Bishop of New York who was not Irish-born and, as of 2021, remains the only Bishop or Archbishop of New York who was not either of Irish birth or of Irish ancestry.
The Appalachian College of Pharmacy (ACP), formerly known as the University of Appalachia, College of Pharmacy, is a private doctoral pharmacy school located in Oakwood, Virginia. The school, established in 2003, is Virginia's only three-year accelerated Doctor of Pharmacy program. ACP's mission is to improve the health outcomes of rural and underserved communities, particularly those in Central Appalachia, through education, service, and scholarship.
William Cleveland Mims is a senior justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia. He is a former member of the Virginia General Assembly and Attorney General of Virginia. He is the second person in Virginia history to serve in these three offices. He presently is a lecturer and director of the pre-law program at Christopher Newport University.
Glen Morgan Williams was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
Gregory D. Habeeb is a lawyer and American politician in Southwest Virginia. He is a conservative Republican and was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing the 8th district, which includes the City of Salem, Craig County, and parts of Roanoke and Montgomery Counties from January 2011 to August 31, 2018.
Marcus Bertram Simon is an American lawyer and politician from Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Simon is the member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 53rd district, which includes Falls Church and parts of Fairfax County. His committee assignments include: Finance; Courts of Justice; Public Safety; and Communications, Technology and Innovation. He serves as Democratic Floor Leader for the House Democratic Caucus. He is appointed to the Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Simon was one of the eight legislators appointed to the 2021 Virginia Redistricting Commission, along with eight citizen members. As a lawyer, Simon was a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Army and currently owns his own law firm.
Jason Stuart Miyares is an American attorney and politician serving as the 48th Attorney General of Virginia since January 15, 2022. A Republican, he was elected a member of the Virginia House of Delegates on November 3, 2015, from the 82nd district which encompasses part of Virginia Beach. He was elected Attorney General of Virginia in 2021.
Jean McGlothlin Doerge is director of the Germantown Colony and Museum in Webster Parish, Louisiana and a former Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives who represented District 10 from 1998 to 2012. From 2001 to 2006, she served as the vice chair of the House's Commerce Committee; in 2007, she was appointed to the Louisiana House Appropriations Committee, and from 2008 to 2012, she served as the vice chair of the Retirement Committee.
