Judge With ‘West Virginia Grit’ Takes on 1st Opioid MDL Trial

Brooke Conkle and Chris Carlson, associates with Troutman Pepper, were quoted in the Law360 article, “Judge With ‘West Virginia Grit’ Takes on 1st Opioid MDL Trial.”

“He is a West Virginia guy to his core,” Brooke Conkle of Troutman Pepper, a former clerk for the judge, told Law360. “He has that sort of West Virginia grit that I can’t imagine him anywhere else. And I think that he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. He wanted to be in West Virginia.”

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What exemplifies Judge Faber, who declined to be interviewed by Law360, is the way he combines scholarship with a pragmatic and practical approach to the law, as well as with an empathy for the people before him, said Conkle of Troutman Pepper.

“He is a law and order kind of guy, but also still with a heart and someone who approaches cases knowing that there are people on both sides and being sympathetic and respectful,” Conkle said.

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“He personally shuns the spotlight, and he will do everything he can to make sure that the case and the trial run the way that they’re supposed to, that everything stays on track,” Conkle said.

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Chris Carlson, an attorney at Troutman Pepper who had also clerked for the judge, said that one of the lessons he took away from his time clerking for Judge Faber was that each case, no matter how big or small, matters to the individuals involved, adding that the judge impressed upon his clerks the seriousness of chambers and the cases that come before him.

“This is a case that’s going to impact a lot of people individually,” Carlson said. “Though Judge Faber is not going to be impact driven, he’s going to apply what the law says.”

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Judge Faber took senior status to work on that doctorate, but still maintains a relatively full caseload, Carlson said. Judge Faber was Chief Judge of West Virginia’s Southern District from 2002 until 2007.

And his eagerness to learn is reflected in how he approaches the cases before him, Carlson said.

“He understands in granular detail everything about anything from the smallest to the biggest cases,” Carlson said. “He’s the one who reads the 50-plus-page pretrial report every time. He doesn’t pass it along to his clerks.”