Attorney, Bailey & Glasser LLP
Photo by Rick Lee.
By Samantha Cart. Even though Sandra Kinney, an attorney at Bailey & Glasser LLP, has been practicing law for more than 20 years, she will never forget her first day at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
“The first day of law school, the first class, and I was the person called on,” she remembers. “It was terrifying. I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to stand up when I answered the question? I couldn’t stand up because I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. But I survived.”
And it’s a good thing she did, because Kinney has been a vital asset to the Mountain State, particularly through her work with Legal Aid of West Virginia (LAWV).
“I went to law school because I wanted to help people, and that has guided my career choices over the years,” she says. “After an internship with the United Automobile Workers in Detroit, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in union-side labor law, and that’s what brought me to West Virginia.”
Kinney’s work with LAWV, the state’s primary provider of civil legal aid and advocacy services, is well known, and in this role she demonstrated the hallmark of a true leader, working behind the scenes to ensure the well-being of others.
“Representing victims of domestic violence in family court was the most fulfilling part of my job at LAWV,” she says. “I had to learn perspective and remember that my clients’ experiences were not my experiences. My clients shared their most raw and personal stories with me and trusted me to fight for them. It was my job to be strong for them, and they deserved it. I really can’t imagine any more powerful work.”
During her time at LAWV, Kinney arranged ask-a-lawyer sessions for domestic violence victims, represented homeless veterans, provided outreach to veterans and organizations that serve veterans and planned and implemented LAWV’s expansion of veterans’ services throughout the state.
Today, as an attorney at Bailey & Glasser, Kinney is working on wage and hour cases and consumer class actions brought to protect the rights of West Virginians. “Because a class action can remedy systemic wrongs afflicting thousands of people, these cases have the potential not only to help those victimized by illegal conduct but bring marketplace abuses to light and change or even completely eliminate them,” she says.
Kinney is admittedly motivated by a strong desire to win, serve her clients and learn new things.
“To me, success is more than just winning cases,” she says. “It’s about the quality of your work in and out of the courtroom. I treat all my clients with the same level of respect, whether an indigent person, corporate officer or agency head. Because I am patient and willing to listen, I am able to make genuine connections and build good relationships.”
That ability to form meaningful relationships led Kinney to create West Virginia Women Attorneys (WVWA), a network of female lawyers who share business development ideas and establish mentoring relationships, in 2016. The group is now a member organization of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations. In under a year, WVWA has grown to include over 600 members and, under Kinney’s leadership, is in the development stages of becoming a 501(c)(6) business league.
“My goal with the WVWA is to address the variety of issues that women from diverse backgrounds find important and make West Virginia a better place to practice law for all women,” she says.
Kinney has also been a highly effective advocate in a variety of other roles. In addition to serving as a legal aid attorney, she has worked as an assistant state attorney general for civil rights, an assistant U.S. attorney in the civil division and in private practice, and she currently chairs the West Virginia State Bar Association’s newly formed Women in the Law committee. She is also heavily involved with the Blessed Sacrament Church in South Charleston, where she has served as a Eucharistic minister, Sunday school teacher, camp counselor, chair of the St. Maria Goretti Guild and a member of the marriage preparation team and parish pastoral council.
Of all her many roles, Kinney stresses that her family is her greatest success, and her career is the cherry on top. “I’ve been able to shape my work around family life and as a complement to it,” she says. “My goal has always been to do good work and challenge myself intellectually, and I feel like I’m accomplishing that.”
