Patrick McGinley is a graduate of Dickinson College and Duke University School of Law. He was law clerk for Justice Thomas W. Pomeroy Jr. of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. McGinley served as Special Asst. Attorney General, Pennsylvania Environmental Strike Force. He is the Charles H. Haden II Professor of Law at West Virginia University where he teaches environmental, administrative, and natural resources law. Professor McGinley was co-editor of Coal Law & Regulation andthe Eastern Mineral Law Foundation’s Annual Proceedings. He has served as Chair, ALI-ABA Course of Study: Legal Issues in the Coal Industry; Chair, Assn. of American Law Schools, Environmental Law Section; member Advisory Board, W. Va, Department of Energy; member, W.Va. Governor’s Independent Investigation Panels of Sago and Upper Big Branch Mine Disasters. He is a member of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, a global network of human rights and environmental advocates. The Environmental Policy Institute has recognized him for Atireless efforts to promote and uphold the rights of the land, the people of America's coalfields and the law protecting them" and by the Public Justice Foundation for Awinning exceptional victories for the public interest. For more than three and a half decades Professor McGinley has represented and counseled Appalachian rural families and communities seeking to vindicate their rights to a healthy and safe environment.