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PRACTICE GROUPS AND INDUSTRY AREAS
- Class Action and Mass Torts
- Labor and Employment Law, Benefits & Compensation
- Litigation
- Solutions Group
Kevin Nelson has been the lead lawyer in trials in the areas of employment law, insurance, medical malpractice, and energy law. His primary emphasis in more than 25 years of practice has been in employment law, where he has litigated matters involving trade secrets, discrimination, and wrongful discharge. He also provides his clients with risk management advice and review on a variety of employment matters including hiring, discipline, discrimination, discharge, promotion and demotion, benefits, and employee handbooks.
Mr. Nelson also has extensive experience in providing counsel on, and litigating and trying cases involving, insurance bad faith and personal injuries. A particular area of emphasis in the insurance area has been in the representation of insurance agents, medical care providers, and attorneys facing claims under their professional liability policies.
Mr. Nelson’s clients include coal companies and major suppliers to the coal industry, financial institutions, insurers, manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and the service industry. He has also served as a mediator or arbitrator in a variety of cases.
Examples of matters Mr. Nelson has recently handled include:
A matter in which he successfully defended a major national retailer against an implied employment contract and retaliatory discharge claim
Successfully represented a Forbes 200 Global Company in a case involving claims of trade secrets, breach of restrictive covenant and constructive discharge.
Obtaining the dismissal of two complaints filed with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission against a coal industry supplier
Mr. Nelson has also been recognized for three consecutive years as one of The Best Lawyers in America for his work on behalf of employers in Labor and Employment Law. He currently serves on the Kanawha County Bar Association’s Executive Committee.
A cum laude graduate of Wake Forest University, Mr. Nelson earned his B.A., with honors, in History. While at Wake Forest he served on the Student Judicial Board, was Sports Editor of the school newspaper "The Old Gold and Black," and was a member of the Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa honorary societies. He also worked part-time as a sportswriter for "The Winston-Salem Journal" while an undergraduate.
Mr. Nelson earned his J.D. degree from Washington and Lee University where he was a member of the Law Review. He was also President of his second year class, served as a student advocate in honors trials, and was Sports Editor of the law school newspaper "The Law News."
In addition to his legal work, Mr. Nelson is the girls’ soccer coach at Charleston Catholic High School and was named the 2008 Mideast Sectional Coach of the Year for girls’ soccer by the NFHS Coaches Association. The Mideast section includes Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. He was also the West Virginia girls’ Class AA-A Region III coach of the year in 2006 and 2009, the Kanawha Valley Girls’ Coach of the Year in 2008, and three times has had the honor of coaching the South team in the North-South all-star game. His 2007 team finished the season ranked first in the State in all classes. In 2008 Charleston Catholic won the State AA-A girls’ championship in the first season that the sport was divided into two classifications. His team won a repeat title in 2009, finishing the season with a 20-1-4 record and achieving for the first time recognition in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s regional rankings.
Mr. Nelson plays soccer and was a member of a West Virginia team that participated in the Veterans’ Cup, a national tournament for players over 40. He is also the Vice-President of the Kanawha-Charleston Soccer Foundation, an organization dedicated to building soccer fields for recreational use in the Kanawha Valley, and serves on the State Secondary Schools’ Activities Commission’s Soccer Committee.
Kevin and his wife Cindy live in Charleston. Their son Ethan currently attends the University of Richmond while their daughter Kelsey, a recent graduate of Middlebury College, is abroad, teaching English as a second language in Guadeloupe.
EDUCATION
Wake Forest University (1980)
Washington and Lee University School of Law (1983)
BAR ADMISSIONS
West Virginia (1983)
United States District Courts for the Southern Districts of West Virginia (1983)
United States District Courts for the Northern Districts of West Virginia
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
PROFESSIONAL AND CIVIC AFFILIATIONS
Defense Research Institute
WV State Bar
WV Bar Association
Vice President of the Kanawha/Charleston Soccer Foundation