Burnside not seeking reelection as Raleigh County judge

Sep. 25—When Robert Burnside first came to Beckley in 1977 to work as an attorney, he felt like an outsider.

Despite having grown up in the neighboring county of Fayette in the small community of Kincaid, Beckley seemed like a world away from where he grew up.

Now, more than 40 years later, Burnside is far from an outsider, having made a name for himself as a circuit court judge in Raleigh County.

"I feel amazed and fortunate and lucky and grateful and thankful," Burnside said when asked how it felt to be embraced by a community he now called home.

"I think Raleigh County and the city of Beckley can be a warm and welcoming place. And they were to me."

Burnside has served as a circuit court judge in Raleigh County since 1988 and has been reelected for four consecutive terms.

With just over a year left in his current term, Burnside has decided not to seek reelection.

Although he's only recently decided to make his decision public to allow any would-be candidate the chance to prepare, Burnside said he has known for some time that this would be his final term.

"I emotionally knew it in 2016 when I ran," he said. "My age — I will be 76 at the end of the term, which is the average lifespan for an American male. So, the statistical probability of seeing another spring is kind of bleak. So I wanted to live some more life before the Grim Reaper came to visit."

For those only familiar with Burnside's career as a judge, it may come as a surprise to know that he never set out to have a career in law.

Even as a student at Concord College, now Concord University in Athens, Burnside had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

In 1970, he graduated from Concord with a degree in English and a minor in American history, though both happened almost by accident.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just took courses that I found interesting and that's how it added up to an English degree," Burnside said.

Still trying to figure out what he wanted to do or how he would use his degree, Burnside decided to see if he could qualify for a job with the state, which is how he wound up working as a social worker in Fayette County.

A few years later, he moved on to work at a hospital in Charleston. While there, he took a few random courses at a local college just as something to do.

During one of these courses, a fellow student suggested he might consider becoming an attorney.

As it turned out, the student who had made this suggestion to Burnside was the wife of Thomas McHugh, a judge in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County who would later be a justice with the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Burnside said it was McHugh who encouraged him to go to law school.

"He became a bit of a mentor for me," Burnside said. "Someone who encouraged me and helped me and advised me about how to get into law school and what to do when I got there. Just the most valuable information and advice and great friend."

Attending McHugh's alma mater, Burnside graduated from West Virginia University College of Law in 1977.

But after earning his law degree, he was again left with the question of what to do next.

"I didn't have any connections, and my family wasn't lawyers," he said. "... So I sent out maybe 100 and some letters, just asking for interviews at law firms all over the state. And I was granted an interview at a firm in Martinsburg and a firm right here (in Beckley)."

As fate would have it, Burnside was hired by the Beckley firm of File Payne Scherer & Brown.

"It was a great opportunity," Burnside said. "I mean, nobody knew me here. They didn't know me. I'm just a name on a page, and they looked at my resume and interviewed me, and I got the offer, and I was doing backflips."

Burnside stayed at the firm until 1988, when he became a circuit judge, another job he never anticipated possessing, mainly because being a judge would require him to be elected and to be elected, a person needed to be known.

"I've heard it said that every lawyer wants to be a judge, and that's kind of true," he said. "And in the back of my mind, I thought it'd be a cool job to have ... Intellectually, it was interesting to me, but I didn't think I had any hope because I was nobody. I was this kid from Kincaid who had been granted this great gift of a job in Beckley, and I love it. I really was happy to be there."

Despite his doubts, Burnside threw his hat in the ring for a judgeship when the opportunity presented itself to fill an unexpired term in the Tenth Judicial Circuit in Raleigh County, and to his surprise, he won.

"I was totally amazed," he said. "... I was honored and surprised and humbled that they had that much faith in this kid from Kincaid who was like 39 years old."

Burnside would seek reelection four more times, running opposed only once, in 2016.

When asked what advice he would give to the next judge to take his place, Burnside said he'd offer the same advice he was given when he started more than 30 years ago.

The advice is from a book he found left on his desk the first day he walked into his office as a judge.

In the back of the book, published by the National Judicial College in Nevada, was a list called the ten commandments for a judge.

Though he's since lost the book, Burnside said he still recalls the commandments. One of those commandments was to take the job of a judge seriously but not to take yourself seriously. "Don't think that you're a big deal," said Burnside, explaining the meaning of the commandment.

"You have a job to do, and this is how you do it. And you happen to have the authority in the courtroom because your job is to make sure these things are as right as you can make them. Somebody in the courtroom has to make a decision, and that happens to be you. So make it carefully and have respect for the system, but don't think it makes you personally great or wonderful or all that."

He added that the other commandment that sticks in his mind also has to do with judges keeping their egos in check.

"People will tell you, when you're a judge, how wonderful or smart you are. They tell you that all the time. You get in trouble when you believe them," he said.

Burnside said, in explaining this commandment, that it's about a judge's function and role.

"I'm not there because I'm the smartest lawyer in the world. I'm there because somebody has to be the lawyer that makes the decisions, and I have to do that carefully," he said.

In looking back at where he's come from, physically, Burnside hasn't traveled very far.

His office in the Raleigh County Judicial Center overlooks the large stone building where he worked as an attorney for the Beckley firm of File Payne Scherer & Brown, which is still there today, though the partners have changed.

"I look over that direction pretty often," Burnside said. "And I think back to those years. And I feel good about it. I was happy there, and I've been happy here."

With his final term nearing an end, Burnside said he's looking forward to spending more time with his family and enjoying his hobbies.

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com