2018 AWARDS
Taunja Willis Miller
Counsel, Jackson Kelly PLLC
I have always garnered strength from the hills
and from my heritage. I have had a wonderful
professional and personal life here, and I want
to help others have the same.”
Photo by Rick Lee.
BY KATLIN SWISHER. Logan, WV, native
Taunja Willis Miller has had a career of
firsts, which has helped pave the way for
other female lawyers to be successful in
the Mountain State. A law career wasn’t
always on her radar, but finding this path
has allowed her to leave her mark on both
her profession and West Virginia.
Before college, Willis Miller dreamed
of working for the United Nations. When
she enrolled at West Virginia University
(WVU) as an undergraduate, she pursued
a degree in French with plans to put it to
good use with foreign service. She later
switched to political science, realizing
she did not want to stray too far or too
long from West Virginia.
“WVU helped a shy girl from Logan
grow into a relatively confident young
woman who was the president of the senior
honorary and a varsity cheerleader,” she
says. “More importantly, I became com-
mitted to staying in West Virginia and
making it a better place for all to live.”
Willis Miller earned her law degree
from WVU College of Law in 1977, receiv-
ing Order of the Coif and Patrick Duffy
Koontz honors. Her class was the first
class to attend all three years in the new
law school facility, marking an exciting
start to a long career of firsts. There were
also plenty of challenges and benefits to
studying at WVU College of Law, all of
which contributed to the success story
that is Willis Miller’s career.
“The most challenging aspects about
law school were the Socratic method of
teaching and having only one examina-
tion per semester,” she recalls. “The most
enjoyable parts were being surrounded by
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
bright people, honing analytical skills and
writing. My law school class was the first
class with a significant number of women
in it, which was an interesting dynamic.”
After graduation, Willis Miller joined
Jackson Kelly’s Charleston office, where
her practice was primarily focused on the
area of public finance. Public projects she
worked on included the establishment
of West Virginia’s first water and sewer
bond bank and the creation of WVU Hos-
pitals, the predecessor to today’s West
Virginia United Health System, known
as WVUMedicine.
As a young female attorney, Willis
Miller encountered misconceptions about
her abilities that were based on her gender
and age.
“Early on, a Charleston city official
complimented one of my mentors on
how smart he was to bring an assistant,
referring to me, to city council to take
notes when I was the one who had pre-
pared the ordinance and other documents
being presented,” she says. “Even in law
school, one firm I interviewed with asked
whether I would be able to lift the prop-
erty books in the courthouse. I think I
addressed these challenges just by con-
tinuing to do good work, which is what
most people want.”
She continued to counter those mis-
conceptions with her hard work and dil-
igence, becoming the first female partner
at Jackson Kelly in 1984.
Led by her deep love for and commit-
ment to the state of West Virginia and
its people, Willis Miller withdrew from
Jackson Kelly in 1989 to become the
state’s first secretary of the Department
of Health and Human Resources (DHHR)
and a member of Governor Gaston Cap-
erton’s cabinet.
“It was an incredibly difficult job,”
she recalls. “The state was experiencing
a financial crisis, and much of my job in-
volved canceling programs and finding
ways to either cut the budget or obtain
more funds. It was and is one of the larg-
est departments in state government. It
was also very rewarding. We made sub-
stantial progress, particularly relating
to health care programs that still exist.”
According to Willis Miller, her time
spent as the DHHR secretary helps her
keep the practice of law in perspective
today. “Deciding whether a security in-
terest is validly perfected may be challeng-
ing intellectually, and a wrong decision
could prove costly. But that decision is
very different from one directly affect-
ing people’s quality of life—whether they
will get health care, child care or even
food,” she says.
After three years of public service,
Willis Miller returned to Jackson Kelly in
The annual Jackson Kelly
photograph from 1977.