The West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw gives his written opinions and advice upon questions of law to state officials, heads of state institutions, and the prosecuting attorneys; handles all litigation on behalf of the state government and any department or agency thereof; represents the state in all claims processed by the Court of Claims; prosecutes civil actions as authorized by law; enforces the state's consumer, antitrust, and preneed burial statutes; enforces the West Virginia Human Rights Act and the West Virginia Fair Housing Act; is a member of the Board of Public Works; Council of Finance and Administration; Public Land Corporation; West Virginia Housing Fund; West Virginia Sheriff's Bureau; Department of Public Safety Retirement Board; Bid Suspension Review Board; State Building Commission; Commission on Charitable Contributions; Women's Commission; Multistate Tax Compact Advisory Committee; Records Management and Preservation Advisory Committee.

The Education Arts & Boards Division of the West Virginia Attorney General's Office represents a hodgepodge of agencies, boards and commissions that is hard to categorize. We also represent about thirty professional and occupational licensing boards and commissions. These boards and commissions regulate the practice of various professions and occupations which run the gamut from accountants, to registered nurses, to real estate appraisers, to land surveyors to veterinarians.

Our job in representing these boards and commissions is primarily centered around representing them in administrative hearings to take disciplinary action against licensees that have committed an infraction of some sort. These infractions also run the gamut from professional malpractice to unethical behavior under the standards that govern a particular profession. The vast majority of these disciplinary cases are "settled" before they go to an administrative hearing.

They are usually settled by "consent agreement" wherein the licensee agrees to submit to some sort of discipline against his or her license. The discipline runs the gamut from a reprimand up to revocation or a surrender of the person's license to practice. We also provide legal counsel/advice to many of these boards and commissions on a whole host of issues confronting government regulatory agencies.

Kelli D. Talbott
Deputy Attorney General

Kelli D. Talbott is a 1988 graduate of West Virginia University College of Law and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Fairmont State College. Ms. Talbott joined the Attorney General’s Office in September 1988 as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office’s Civil Rights Division. Ms. Talbott has held various positions throughout the Attorney General’s Office in which she represented a variety of state agencies, including state colleges and universities, the Alcohol Beverage Control Commissioner, and the State Auditor. Ms. Talbott currently holds the position of Deputy Attorney General where she and the attorneys in her division are responsible for representing the state’s professional and occupational licensing boards and commissions, the Division of Labor, the Higher Education Policy Commission and higher education institutions, the Division of Rehabilitation Services, the Division of Personnel, the West Virginia Board of Education, and many other state agencies and officers.

Ms. Talbott is an active member of the West Virginia State Bar’s Government Lawyers Committee and served as that Committee’s inaugural chairperson. Most recently, Ms. Talbott was appointed by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to the Rules Committee for Administrative Appeals. The Rules Committee’s charge is to develop proposed rules governing administrative appeals in the state’s circuit courts. Ms. Talbott was elected chairperson of the Rules Committee by its members.

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