Jim Douglas

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Douglas earned his B.A. from the University of Charleston. He later received his M.A. and J.D. from West Virginia University. His career experience includes working as an attorney.[1]

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Jim Douglas did not complete [the profile publisher]'s 2020 Candidate Connection survey.

Douglas' campaign website listed the following themes for 2016:

The United State Constitution, Amendment XIV, guarantees all Americans equal protection of the laws of this country and the various states.

Therefore, it is essential that courts promote and pay homage to the venerable predictability function of the law. This means that in a given factual context, the legal result should be the same each and every time those same facts are presented in a dispute. This is indispensable for practitioners to be able to advise their clients in law suits. Nowhere is this concept more necessary than in the field of family law.

Families are the veritable bedrock of our American society. Nothing should command more attention in the legal world than matters involving families and children. So, West Virginia Family Courts need to try to get it right for the sake of not only the current litigants, but the litigants that follow. We must not only account for the making of our laws, we must predict the outcome of their application.

Law must be honored and invoked, but tempered with equity. Sometimes courts have no signposts in the laws, then, in such case, they must do that which should be or should have been done.

A Family Judge must be guided by, indeed he or she must pledge fealty to, four (4) basic principles:

1. All citizens have the right of access to their courts and the equal right to be heard when they get there. The West Virginia Constitution, Article III, Section 17 assures West Virginians of this. Therefore, Family Court Judges should not limit the amount of time any party can have to present his or her case.

2. The law favors speedy justice. Continuances, then, should not be easily or lightly given by a judge. Lawyers should be prepared to go to court.

3. No one can realize the right to go to court, or to plead his or her case, or to have prompt relief if court is not convened or open. Thus, a judge has to hold court, and he or she should have to work if they are going to hold judicial office. Of course, even judges need vacations, but judges should get to court promptly and be prepared to stay after regular quitting time in order to finish a case.

Orders from a hearing should be promptly prepared, and a judge should quickly enter proper orders. A delay in the writing and filing or family court orders can occasion loss, defeat resolution of issues, impede finality of disputes, and disrupt the appellate process.

4. And in the end:

"...it is our future that lays down our law of today."

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

[5]

—Jim Douglas (2016), [6]