Judge Paul W. Gwaltney, Jr., was sworn in as a judge in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit (Monongalia County) on June 2. Governor Jim Justice appointed Judge Gwaltney to replace Judge Susan B. Tucker, who retired April 28, 2023.

Judge Gwaltney was admitted to the West Virginia Bar in October 2003 after he graduated in the top 15 percent of his class in May 2003 from West Virginia University College of Law. He served as executive research editor of the Law Review his third year of law school and was an associate editor his second year. Before law school, he worked as a clerk in the Education Department for the Louis A. Johnson Veterans’ Administration Medical Center.

Judge Gwaltney has an undergraduate degree from Bob Jones University, where he participated in the South Carolina Student Legislature and also judged high school debates.

Before taking the bench, Judge Gwaltney had an active criminal defense practice in North Central West Virginia. During the first 17 years of his practice, he was a civil litigator. In December 2020, he opened Gwaltney Law Office with the sole purpose of representing individuals in criminal and juvenile abuse cases.

Judge Gwaltney married the former Lydia J. Board of Fairmont in 1998. In 2004 the Gwaltneys moved to Morgantown, where they raised two daughters. The family attends Calvary Chapel Morgantown.