Document Type
Student Note
Abstract
Despite the intense and prolonged efforts of thousands of activists in the 1960s and 1970s to obtain safer working conditions for coal miners, pneumoconiosis rates, disease that develops as a result of inhalation of particle material, is on the rise. The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo has shaken the ground upon which administrative agencies’ ability to promulgate rules to protect miners rests. This Note profiles a handful of attorneys, archetypes of community lawyering, who advocated for Appalachian coal miners during the height of the Black Lung Movement and continue to do so today. Through conversations with these attorneys, this Note’s author argues that the history of the labor struggles in Appalachia shows how essential community involvement was to the work of these attorneys. The past ought to inform the future. Attorneys who desire to advocate for miners should make use of the principles and strategies used by John Cline, Bob Cohen, Grant Crandall, and Sam Petsonk. Their involvement in the community empowered the people they served and succeeded where institutions had failed.
Recommended Citation
Gregory Robertson,
Community Lawyering in Coal Country: Empowering Those Who Power America,
128
W. Va. L. Rev.
829
(2026).
Available at:
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol128/iss2/14