Attorney, Farrell Law
By Emily Rice
Photo by Rick Lee.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in government in 1994, Paul Farrell attended a West Virginia University (WVU) football game with his father, Judge Paul Farrell. At the time, Farrell was considering which law school he would attend.
After the game, the two took a walk through the WVU College of Law, stopping at his father’s 1978 class photo. His father proceeded to point to each of the people in the photo and list their current titles. From senate president and senior partners to speakers of the house and judges, it was a successful class and a successful lesson to his son.
“He said to me, ‘West Virginia is a family, and if you go to school here, the people you go to school with, you will see for the rest of your life,’” Farrell recalls. “He told me if I wanted to come home and practice law, then there was only one place to go, so that is what I decided to do.”
The oldest of three brothers, Farrell grew up in Huntington, WV. Coming from a family of lawyers, he knew what profession he would choose. However, his eventual career practice would differ from that of his family’s.
After earning his Juris Doctor from the WVU College of Law in 1997, Farrell returned home to Huntington to work for Farrell, Farrell and Farrell with his father and two uncles. It was in this position he was mentored by his uncle, Michael Farrell. While he thought his uncle was being too hard on him at the time, in hindsight, he sees the lessons he learned.
“At that point in time, everything in my life had come to me easily,” he says. “I graduated from law school and went into the real world, and what he taught me was a lot of hard lessons on mental discipline. He taught me how to be a highly competent lawyer and to be undeniable. I have used those early lessons throughout the rest of my career. He taught me being talented is not enough. Hard work beats talent when talent stops working hard.”
After three years at his family’s firm, Farrell decided that defense law was not the type of law he wanted to practice.
“They are some of the very best lawyers in the state, but my heart wasn’t in it. I can’t explain it any other way,” he says. “I left behind my family legacy, moved to Morgantown and begged a plaintiff’s law firm there to give me a job. I put my loans on forbearance, moved into a 100-year-old cottage on my father-in-law’s farm and had two small children. I started from scratch.”
After leaving his family’s firm in 1999, by 2006 Farrell had developed into one of the most successful medical malpractice trial lawyers in the state of West Virginia. He attributes much of that success to having worked from the defense perspective first, giving him a leg up by understanding the ins and outs of the defense case when he became a plaintiff’s lawyer. Soon, Farrell moved back to Huntington, continuing to work as a plaintiff’s lawyer focusing on medical malpractice.
In 2009, he received an influx of medical malpractice cases with one similarity: a new medical device called transvaginal mesh.
“A beta tester in Huntington botched 40 straight surgeries, and I received those cases as medical malpractice cases,” he recalls. “What I realized was that while the doctor was struggling with this surgery, the product was also failing miserably. I was the first person in the country to file a product liability case for women with transvaginal mesh. Because I filed the first 40 cases in the country, soon, 80,000 more cases were filed all over the U.S., and they were all transferred here to West Virginia for one big case.”
Soon, national firms flooded West Virginia from all over the country, and Farrell watched, studied and analyzed the way these large firms worked, stowing away the information, much as he had during his experience in defense law. Driven by a dogged determination to improve his home state, he soon took on a much larger and more high-stakes target: opioid distributors.
“There was a newspaper article by Eric Eyre that revealed 780 million pills of opium were sold into West Virginia,” he says. “I saw that and filed one of the first opium cases in the country against the distributors. Pretty soon, I was hired by most of Southern West Virginia and then southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky. The next thing you know, virtually every county in the country filed an identical case, and they all got sent to one place, just like before. These cases were all sent to Cleveland, Ohio. By that time, I had been hired by 700 counties across the U.S., so I used that and my knowledge from the transvaginal mesh case to get appointed as the co-lead of the national case.”
Farrell has attempted, through transparency and accountability, to find a solution to the opioid epidemic in his home state.
“That is my story. We have done something extraordinary but must finish the race. It is either going to be magic or tragic,” he says. “I am tired of going to funerals for the children of my friends. I am trying to make a difference.”
Over the past four years working on this case, Farrell has earned the respect of national firms and now considers them peers. However, he says he has also learned that West Virginia lawyers are some of the best in the country.
“We can stand toe to toe with anybody else,” he says. “Those who practice law here have always understood that just because someone is from a big city, that doesn’t make them a better lawyer.”
While Farrell enjoys taking on these David and Goliath-like cases, the biggest challenge he has faced in his career is the impact it had on his family.
“My father was the best dad you could ever want, and I have tried my best to follow in his footsteps, but the biggest challenge of my life has always been being a dad,” he says. “I have three very bright, successful children, and I have tried my best to be a dad for them. But taking on these big cases takes me away from home a lot. I think my greatest success will be the day my wife, Jackie, and I become grandparents. Then I will have had the opportunity to look backward and see whether I was able to pass on the culture, values and love my parents passed on to me.”
Farrell’s favorite part of living and working in West Virginia is Sunday breakfasts at his family home.
“My father, the judge, puts on an apron and makes bacon and eggs, my mom makes waffles, and all the grandkids come in. My brothers and their families all show up on Sunday morning, the brothers pass around The New York Times crossword puzzle, and we catch up. It is our moment to connect every week.”
