Special
Features / February 2007
Lawfully Wedded
 Michele Rusen and Walt Auvil
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By Pat Lawrence
Michele Rusen and Walt Auvil became lawful wedded partners when they married in 1987-and then again in 2006, when they officially merged their respective law practices. Walt is a Parkersburg native, Shelly was originally from Steubenville, Ohio. They met as law clerks working at the WV Supreme Court of Appeals in Charleston. Their interests led them in different directions after clerking. Shelly joined the Kanawha County Prosecutor's office.
Walt went to the Attorney General's office. But, in 1986,when Walt accepted an offer from a private law firm in Washington DC, Shelly began looking for career options in the capital, too. Soon she was representing the National Treasury Employees Union, providing counsel to federal agency employees, including customs officials and IRS workers.
Michele says, “I was still in high school when I decided to be an attorney. Women were just starting to enter law, just breaking into the field, so I wanted to try it. The first few years, I wasn’t even sure that I liked it!”
After three years in DC, the two came back to Parkersburg and Shelly became Wood County’s Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. She was elected and served as the Wood County Prosecuting Attorney from 1992-1996. After her public office, Shelly’s private practice has been predominantly family law and criminal law. She says, “When you do family law, you end up on every side of an issue, the parent’s, the child’s, the grandparent’s. The problems are huge, and very emotional. It takes a lot out of you. And it changes your perspective on human nature.”
While Shelly was in the Procecutor’s Office, Walt started on the path to a new field of practice, employment law. One of Parkersburg’s few woman attorney, Beth Pyles, was a former and frequent debate opponent. When Walt joined her practice, “She had all these gender cases that had been filed, but little else because of the volume. She put the pile on my desk and I started working through them. It was a different world then. It wasn’t about proving discrimination but trying to explain it was wrong.
Juries and judges accepted overt statements from employers, like ‘I pay men more; they have families to support’ because they agreed men should be paid more.” The National Employment Lawyers Association was just being established and Walt has remained active with the group since its inception.
Beth Pyles left the law business, but Walt continued growing a successful employment law practice. Other lawyers, management and non-management personnel call on his expertise to review employment agreements and contracts, policy guidelines, severance packages, and workforce reduction procedures. Working with so many different entities, Walt, too, is accustomed to viewing issues from a variety of perspectives. He says, “Despite the thousands of regulations and judgments that have clarified and classified employee/employer relationships, there’s still abundant opportunity for inequity and misunderstanding. You see good and bad decisions; good and bad intentions.”
Now Michele and Walt share offices under the firm name, Rusen and Auvil. Their brick building is the former home and clinic of a turn-of-the-last-century doctor, built in 1907. Walt says, “She has one address, the three room suite that was his office; I have the other side, which was his home. The nature of civil cases is that you don’t do much trial work, but Shelly has taken many, many cases through trial. The depth of her trial experience is a great asset. Together we have fifty years of law practice. Having her here is great.”
Shelly says, “I really enjoy private practice. It gives you more freedom, more control over your schedule. Instead of the public face, people get to see the person inside, who laughs and enjoys life. But I’m drawn to the public issues. I grew up in a home where politics were front and center, part of the everyday conversation.”
She still lives in a home like that. Walt chairs the Wood County Democratic Executive Committee and Shelly anticipates running for public office again, perhaps for a judgeship on the Judicial Circuit Court covering Wood and Wirt Counties.
In January, they turned 50, and combining the years, celebrated their 100th birthday with a big party. Shelly, who is 26 days older than Walt, says, “It was a shock. I just turned 40 last year!”
Working together has made a few changes in their relationship, Shelly says. “We do find we discuss the administrative parts of the day more, but we have the common interest as well. We have a few cases we work together. And we also have a fifteen year old son in common. He doesn’t have his drivers license yet, so we’re either driving him or worrying about him.”
According to Shelly, their son hasn’t shown an interest in the law, but he may later. “I’ve never seen anyone avoid cross examination like our son!”
To contact Rusen and Auvil, call 304-485-3058.
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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