Marjorie Anne McDiarmid

Steptoe & Johnson Professor of Law and Technology, West Virginia University College of Law

By Katlin Swisher, Ph.D.

As the Steptoe & Johnson Professor of Law at the West Virginia University
(WVU) College of Law, Marjorie McDiarmid knows firsthand how technology has changed the legal profession and legal education.

“I have been fascinated by the possibilities of computers from the advent of the personal computer,” she says. “There are so many things we can do today that touch on law practice that simply were not possible at the beginning of my career as a lawyer.”

For nearly 20 years, McDiarmid has served on the board of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), the national consortium of law schools devoted to the development of technology in legal education. With the onset of COVID-19 and the resulting rapid transition to online learning, technology is more critical than ever, and CALI’s role in legal education has become more prominent as law professors increasingly rely on its resources for their virtual classrooms.

McDiarmid is also passionate about family law, poverty issues and women’s rights and believes technology is the key to improving free legal services for individuals in need. Most of her pro bono work involves domestic violence hearings.

“Domestic violence puts a disproportionate number of West Virginia families at risk, killing too many West Virginia women and children. The risk of women and children falling into poverty because of the break-up of families is a major contributor to misery among our people,” she says. “I believe we can use technology to increase the level of free and low-cost legal services, and I plan to work on making this a reality.”

McDiarmid first became aware of the many socioeconomic issues facing women and families during her work for nonprofit organizations while earning her Juris Doctor at Columbia University and her Master of Law at the Harvard University School of Law.

She serves as board president for the Rape and Domestic Violence Information Center, a women’s shelter in Morgantown, and is the treasurer for Legal Aid of West Virginia. She has been a frequent appointee to the West Virginia Child Support Commission. McDiarmid has been recognized for these efforts with the WVU College of Law’s Distinguished Women in Law Award for work in the public sector and the Mary Catherine Buswell Award, which honors individuals for excellence in their field as it relates to the advancement of women.

Although she has lived and worked in places like New York City, Boston and Seattle, McDiarmid considers one of her greatest successes to be the growth of WVU’s clinical law program under her tenure.

“We started with the capacity to serve only about a tenth of the students at WVU, and we are now able to offer a clinic to every interested student,” she says. “I am currently of counsel to the clinic, where I teach substantive poverty law, lawyering skills and evidence. The clinic is a full-year course and many students really blossom and take on an effective professional identity over that period. When that happens, it is very rewarding.”