Melissa Giggenbach
Teaching Associate Professor & Program Director, West Virginia Innocence Project Clinic
Photo by West Virginia University.
KRISTEN UPPERCUE
MELISSA GIGGENBACH was raised in a farming community in Roanoke, WV, a town mostly located under Stonewall Jackson Lake.
The Stonewall Jackson Dam was created as part of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers flood-control project in the 1980s, which formed the Stonewall Jackson Lake reservoir and inundated Roanoke. To complete construction, the government enacted eminent domain, displacing approximately 1,800 people.
Experiencing the dam’ s impact on her community inspired Giggenbach to
pursue a career in law, as she watched many lawyers help community members, often pro bono, through this process.
“ I saw firsthand the direct impact a lawyer could have on improving people’ s lives,” she says.“ Watching my community fight to protect its land and seeing the power of government to overwhelm ordinary citizens informed my world view at a young age. I realized I wanted to stand up to power and speak for ordinary citizens, so education was vital.”
Giggenbach received her under- graduate degree in government with a minor in environmental studies from Sweet Briar College in Virginia before continuing her education at the West Virginia University( WVU) College of Law, graduating in 1999.
Following graduation, Giggenbach started a solo practice in Morgantown, WV, where she took criminal appointments and accepted one personal injury case and one divorce case.
“ I learned a lot from this experience, namely that clinical education in law school is vital to learning how to actually practice law. I would have been lost without my mentors, and I loved criminal defense,” she says.
Giggenbach then accepted a position at the Preston County Public Defender’ s Office with Randy Goodrich. Later, after having her first child, she moved to a home practice focusing on post-conviction matters, including appeals and petitions for habeas corpus.
She currently serves as a teaching associate professor and program director of the West Virginia Innocence Project Clinic at the WVU College of Law, where she oversees administrative tasks and fundraising. There, she also teaches the seminar portion of the clinic class— a course where students learn skills such as interviewing, client counseling and petition drafting. She then supervises students as they practice these skills by representing live clients who have been wrongfully convicted. Giggenbach also teaches criminal law to first semester, first-year law students.
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