Firm Profile

The Calwell Practice is a plaintiff law firm with offices located in Charleston, West Virginia. We are a law firm dedicated to representing people who work for a living and their families.

Firm Philosophy
by Stuart Calwell
 
I started practicing law in 1976, first as Calwell McCormick & Peyton, then as Calwell & McCormick and now as The Calwell Practice, in a small office building in Nitro, West Virginia. Like most young lawyers starting out I wanted to build a 'big, successful practice'. The question, of course, was how to do that. At the time, I didn't really have a clue. Looking back, however, with the benefit of almost a quarter century of experience, I see some defining moments. In 1979, I began listening to stories from clients who would walk into the Nitro office about the Monsanto chemical plant, which was located just across the railroad tracks from First Avenue in Nitro. Men were dying of bladder cancer and many had been sick for years from a product the workers called 'weed bug' but which I later found out was 'Agent Orange', the herbicide that was sprayed on the jungles during the Vietnam War. Some of these workers asked me to sue Monsanto because of their injuries. I did, and what ensued was a five year battle with a multinational chemical company ending in an eleven month jury trial, which I lost. It was a devastating defeat. But, out of that loss, looking back, I see that it was responsible for the building of that successful practice I wanted as a young lawyer. I could never have seen that at the time. If someone had advised me, 'Son, if you want to build a successful law practice, go out and lose the single biggest civil action ever tried in the State of West Virginia'...well, who among us would've taken that advice.

But you see, it wasn’t the winning or losing that made the difference. I learned more from the loss than could ever have been learned from a victory. I learned that often in life truth loses, but truth is always worth fighting for. I learned that the average person is often powerless before big business and big government and unless there is a law firm willing to take these interests on for the average person then truth will never win. And so, my firm began to grow and more and more people began to come with their problems large and small. I also began to see the value of working people coming together to fight for their rights. We even helped form in the early 1990's what is one of the most powerful organizations in the State, the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation - ACT. But we represent people from all walks of life, union and non-union alike. It’s just that the combining together of working people creates a powerful force for the good of all working people. History teaches us that without the Labor Movement we would not have mandatory overtime pay, minimum wage, child labor laws, pensions, and many of the rights which protect all workers in every job-whether union or not.

In the coming months I will be sharing my thoughts in this column on how you can protect your time and why your time is valuable and why you have a duty, an obligation and a right to protect it. The truth is our country would not be where it is today but for your time and the time of your parents and their parents - and that truth is worth fighting for.