U.S. District Judge, Northern District of West Virginia
Photo by Prestige Photography & Video.
By Kevin Duvall
In Fred Stamp’s legal career of nearly 60 years, he has been devoted to public service in and out of the courtroom. Stamp, who has served as a U.S. district judge for the Northern District of West Virginia for 28 years in his hometown of Wheeling, WV, has served his city, state and country as a member of the U.S. Army, West Virginia House of Delegates and various community organizations.
“I have always been a strong believer in public service by lawyers in their communities because I think it makes us better lawyers and better citizens,” he says.
Stamp earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Washington and Lee University and graduated from the University of Richmond School of Law in 1959. After law school, Stamp entered the U.S. Army in a program where he served in active duty for six months and the reserves for six years. At the end of his active duty, he returned to Wheeling to join the law firm Schmidt, Hugus and Laas, now known as Schrader, Companion, Duff & Law, PLLC.
Stamp has seen significant changes in law throughout his career. In his early days of practice, he did everything the senior partners felt needed to be done since there were no specializations at the time. In the 1970s, he became more involved in trial practice, which included both jury trials and small claims cases before justices of the peace, some of which were held in the justices’ homes.
“What I learned from all those first cases is that a lawyer does not get to pick the facts,” says Stamp. “A lawyer tries the case the best he or she can and learns from losing as well as winning.”
After 30 years of practicing law, Stamp was appointed as a U.S. district judge by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. In addition to serving the Northern District of West Virginia, today Stamp also acts as a traveling judge in other districts and has taken cases in Maryland, Ohio, Florida, New York and Arizona. Due to his full case load, mentorship and community commitments, the one thing he is still working on that he has not yet accomplished is his retirement plan.
Stamp highly values the learning experiences he gained from older attorneys when he was a young associate as well as his long-time administrative assistant and the clerks he’s had during his tenure as a judge. “I have had a total of 30 bright young lawyers who have been my law clerks and from whom I have learned so much,” he says. “I am not sure whether my opportunity to talk every day with my two current law clerks qualifies as mentoring because I am probably learning as much from them as they do from me.”
Beyond his cases, Stamp has worked extensively in both general and legal education. As a member of the West Virginia Board of Regents, now the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, in the late 1960s, he helped establish West Virginia’s community college system. He has also served on the boards of Davis & Elkins College, Wheeling Jesuit University and the University of Richmond.
In 1999, Stamp, along with the other federal and state judges in the Northern Panhandle, established the Judicial Scholars Program, which allows high school juniors and seniors to participate in programs on law and law enforcement. Many students from the program have gone on to practice law.
The code of conduct for U.S. judges does not permit public service work that involves the practice of law, but over the years Stamp has done volunteer work for the Wheeling YMCA and The Salvation Army and served as a member of the vestry of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. He also currently serves as an emeritus trustee of The Linsly School.
Stamp has received many awards throughout his career, but the one in particular that stands out for him is the Justitia Officium Award from West Virginia University College of Law.
“I have lived in West Virginia all my life and cannot think of a better place to raise a family and practice law,” he says. “We have an excellent group of lawyers who contribute to the well-being of the state.”
