Richard Neely

Infobox Person
name = Richard Forlani Neely

---

caption = Richard Neely, Photo by Steve Payne, reprinted with permission.
birth_date = August 2, 1941
residence = Charleston, West Virginia
other_names = Richard Neely
known_for = Analysis of the how courts work within the larger political, economic and social system. Pioneer work in domestic law that took into account relative bargaining positions of the parties and the disparities in capacities to litigate.
education = A.B. Economics, Dartmouth College, 1964,LL.B. Yale Law School, 1967
employer = Neely & Callaghan
occupation = Lawyer, Author, Professor, Retired SupremeCourt Justice
term= 22 years
predecessor = Frank C. Haymond
successor = Arthur M. Recht
boards = Member of the Advisory Board, Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) Class Action Litigation Report, 2000- present.
religion = Episcopalian
spouse = Carolyn Elmore Neely
partner = Michael O. Callaghan
children = John Champ Neely, II ; Charles Whittaker Neely, VII
parents = John Champ Neely and Elinore Forlani Neely
website = http://www.neelycallaghan.com/Neely.html

Richard Forlani Neely (August 2, 1941 – ) was a justice and chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals from 1973 to 1995. [Citation
last = West Virginia Division of Culture and History
title = Research: Justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
url=http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/government/supremecourt.html
accessdate = 2008-01-01 ] When he took office, he became the youngest judge of a court of last resort in the English speaking world in the Twentieth Century. [Citation
last = Morgan
first = John G
title = New Members Bring New Look To Supreme Court
newspaper = Charleston Gazette
date = 1973-01-06
year = 1973 ]

Biography

Neely graduated in 1964 from Dartmouth College, where he studied economics, and in 1967 from Yale Law School. From 1968 to 1969 Neely served as an army artillery captain in Vietnam, where he was assigned to the staff of John Paul Vann and then to the staff of Ambassador Charles S. Whitehouse. Among other duties, Neely supervised the economic development program for a quarter of South Vietnam and then wrote the economic development section of the 1969 American pacification plan. He was awarded the Bronze Star.

Upon returning to civilian life, Neely started his own law practice in Fairmont, West Virginia and in 1970 was elected to the West Virginia Legislature. [Citation
last = UPI
title = West Virginia Delegate Victors
newspaper = The Dominion-News
date = 1970-11-05
year = 1970 ] Thereafter, he was elected state-wide as a Democrat to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. As a supreme court justice, Neely led reform of the State mental hospitals and juvenile penal schools. Decisions written by him extended greater protections to mental patients, and wiped out the old, brutal state reform school system for both boys and girls, forcing the substitution of real therapeutic models.

Neely is known for his pioneering work in domestic law. Decisions he wrote for the Court, along with his books and articles, created the foundation for the child custody sections of the American Law Institute’s "Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution". From 1980 until his retirement from the Court in 1995, Neely was among the best known judges in the United States: he wrote regularly for national publications such as "The Atlantic Monthly", "The New Republic", and "The Wall Street Journal". Neely’s scholarly work usually involved the sociology of courts. His oft-reprinted cover article for the August, 1980 "Atlantic Monthly", "The Politics of Crime", [cite journal
author = Richard Neely
year = 1982
month = August
title = The Politics of Crime
journal = The Atlantic Monthly
volume = 258
pages = pp. 27–31
url = http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/crime/neelycri.htm ] explained, for example, that criminal courts are more incompetent than they should be because criminal judges are also civil judges and civil defendants, like insurance companies, actively lobby to keep courts as incompetent as possible to make it harder for civil plaintiffs to sue them.

Neely’s best known book, "How Courts Govern America" [cite book
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = How Courts Govern America
publisher = Yale University Press
year = 1980
isbn = 0300029802 ] was written at the height of judicial activism. Frankly admitting that he was a restrained judicial activist, Neely explained the practical and political limits to courts’ powers, making his book an important contribution to arguments for judicial restraint. The book remains in print.

Neely always maintained an active interest in teaching: He was one of the first American professors to teach law in China in 1984 when China opened up; he served as Atherton Lecturer at Harvard; and, for over a decade he was professor of economics at the University of Charleston. In 1995 Neely retired as chief justice from the WV Supreme Court of Appeals and went back into private practice, starting the firm of Neely & Hunter (now Neely & Callaghan) [Citation
last = Neely & Callaghan
url=http://www.neelycallaghan.com
accessdate = 2008-01-02] in Charleston, West Virginia.

Bibliography

Neely’s other major publications include:

*"Why Wage-Price Guidelines Failed: A General Theory of the Second Best Approach to Inflation Control." 79 "W. Va. Law Review" 1, (1976)

*"How Courts Govern America", Yale University Press, (New Haven and London, 1981)

*"The Politics of Crime," "The Atlantic Monthly" (cover story), August 1982, pp. 27-31

*"Why Courts Don't Work", McGraw-Hill (New York, 1983) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = Why courts don't work
publisher =McGraw-Hill Book Co
year =1983
isbn =0070461511 ]

*"The Divorce Decision", McGraw-Hill (New York, 1984) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = The Divorce Decision: The Human and Legal Consequences of Ending a Marriage
publisher = McGraw-Hill Book Co
year =1984
isbn = 0070461538 ]

*"The Primary Caretaker Parent Rule: Child Custody and the Dynamics of Greed," 3 "Yale Law and Policy Review", p. 168, (1985) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = The Primary Caretaker Parent Rule: Child Custody and the Dynamics of Greed
publisher =Yale Law and Policy Review
year =1985]

*"Judicial Jeopardy: When Business Collides with the Courts", (Addison-Wesley, 1986) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = Judicial Jeopardy: When Business Collides with the Courts
publisher = Addison Wesley Publishing Company
year =1986
isbn = 0201057360 ]

*"The Product Liability Mess", The Free Press (New York, 1988) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = The Product Liability Mess: How Business Can Be Rescued from the Politics of State Courts
publisher = The Free Press
year =1988
isbn = 0029226805 ]

*"Take Back Your Neighborhood: A Case for Modern-day "Vigilantism," Donald I. Fine, Inc., (New York, 1990) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = Take Back Your Neighborhood: A Case for Modern-day "Vigilantism"
publisher = Donald I.Fine,Inc
year =1990
isbn = B000J4ZV1U ]

*"Tragedies of Our Own Making", University of Illinois Press (Champaign, Illinois, 1994) [Citation
last = Neely
first = Richard
title = Tragedies of Our Own Making: How Private Choices Have Created Public Bankruptcy
publisher = University of Illinois Press
year =1994
isbn = 0252020383 ]

*"Insider Trading Prosecutions Under the Misappropriation Theory: New York's Joke on Heartland America" (1994 WL 267860) (1994)

ee also

*List of Justices for the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

References

External links

* [http://www.neelycallaghan.com Neely & Callaghan]