Charleston

Legal Aid of West Virginia’s headquarters will soon be in the historic Staats Hospital Building on Charleston’s West Side, providing an anchor for our statewide services. This location upgrades our ability to offer services and is more visible and accessible in the community, while providing a space where clients will experience safety and respect in a professional setting.

The building, owned and renovated by Tighe Bullock, will provide three floors and a mezzanine level in which to provide legal services to West Virginia’s most vulnerable citizens and from which to administer our statewide programming.

The offices will provide a home for LAWV for years to come and be an anchor for our statewide services, with a presence in a neighborhood where many of our clients live. This move will upgrade our ability to offer services and be more visible and accessible. It will also offer the opportunity to share space with community partners.

The costs for infrastructure and the move itself fall outside the annual budget of LAWV and so are part of a special fundraising campaign: Justice on the Move. Our goal is to raise $500,000. The campaign offers donors naming opportunities for spaces within the offices, as well as the chance to make certain LAWV ensures justice for all into the future.

Logan

Our Logan office recently moved down the street in Logan, WV, to a renovated space that started as a bank, became a beauty school, and now is a law firm serving West Virginians (that’s us)!

Our staff is excited to have a fresh space to serve clients after rough times in their previous space, with water damage and pigeon roommates. We are moved in as of July 2025, but we still have setting up work to do to make this space perfect.

Interested? Get Involved!

Justice on the Move will help LAWV conduct vital work in Charleston and across West Virginia. You can donate online today here!

Or to learn more, please contact:

Missy Menefee, LAWV Resource Development Coordinator
681-466-0310.

A History of the Staats Building

The Staats Hospital Building was designed by John C. Norman, the first registered African American architect in West Virginia, in 1922. Originally, it housed the Glendale Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, the West Side’s first movie theatre, offices, and retailers. The second and third floor of the structure was used as Staats Hospital from the early 1920s until 1982. The building began to deteriorate after the closing of the hospital, and it was placed on the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Endangered Properties List.

John C. Norman designed the Staats Hospital Building in 1922 for the Staats brothers. The four-story structure originally housed the Glendale Lodge of the Knights of Pythias on the fourth floor, while the fraternity’s banquet room, kitchen, serving room, reading room, pool and billiard room, and cigar counter were located on the third floor. The West Side’s first movie theatre was located on the first floor, along with an ice cream parlor and a confectionary. Before transitioning to a hospital, the first floor was also a temporary location for Kelley’s Department Store and an A&P grocer. Dr. Harlan Staats utilized the second and third floors as a 67-bed hospital starting in 1923. In 1941, the Glendale Lodge of the Knights of Pythias moved out of the Staats Hospital Building. Staats Hospital closed in the early 1980s, and St. Francis Hospital utilized the building as St. Francis West Health Care. In 2010, the building had only one occupant: Dr. Adla Adi, who filed bankruptcy the same year. Adi utilized only the first floor while the remaining floors began to deteriorate.

Adi planned to raze the building in the early 2000s, but his plans fell through. In 2012, the Staats Hospital Building was placed on the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Endangered Properties List, which raised awareness that led to developer inquiries. John and Tighe Bullock, of then Bullock Properties LLC, began the purchasing process in May of 2014, and Tighe Bullock is overseeing the current restoration and renovation.