District 1 Voters Deserve Answers From Laura Wakim Chapman
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
By Greg Thomas, Executive Director, West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse
Before Laura Wakim Chapman was a state senator, she was a practicing attorney in Wheeling. For part of her legal career, she worked for Paul Harris, a Wheeling lawyer who was sentenced this spring to more than eight years in federal prison for defrauding his own clients and laundering the proceeds. A federal jury convicted Harris on 29 counts. Prosecutors showed he raided his client trust account — money that belonged to people who trusted him to handle their legal affairs — to pay for his home and his law office, at times using one client's stolen funds to cover what he had already taken from another. A federal judge ordered Harris to forfeit his law office and pay more than $700,000 in restitution to his victims.
That's the professional environment Senator Chapman was part of before she ran for office. Voters in Ohio County and District 1 may reasonably want to understand more about that chapter of her career — what she observed, what she knew, and what it might say about her judgment that a meaningful part of her legal career unfolded alongside a lawyer who, during that same period, was defrauding his clients.
It doesn't stop there. Campaign finance records show Senator Chapman has accepted more than $50,000 from personal injury lawyer interests — the same trial bar that profits when West Virginia's legal system stays exactly as lawsuit-friendly as it is today. Every dollar the personal injury lawsuit industry spends electing a friendly legislator is a dollar spent protecting a system that drives up costs for small businesses, employers, doctors, and manufacturers across the Northern Panhandle.
Our organization, West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, exists because lawsuit abuse has real costs: higher insurance premiums, fewer employers willing to locate or expand here, and a legal climate that scares away the investment the Wheeling area needs. A legislator who has taken tens of thousands of dollars from personal injury lawyers has a conflict of interest every single time legal reform comes up for a vote.
Taken together, these are two things worth weighing side by side: a legal career that overlapped with a lawyer now serving federal time for defrauding his clients, and a campaign substantially funded by the trial lawyer interests that benefit from the current legal climate. District 1 voters deserve confidence in their senator's judgment and independence
Before you vote, look at the record. Look at who trained her. Look at who is funding her campaign, and ask why.
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