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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Summer 2020 was much like any other summer: a group of WVU Law students took on meaningful externships across the state, helping further access to justice for West Virginia’s most vulnerable residents. 

Summer 2020 was also unlike any summer before: because of the pandemic, the externs were challenged with adapting to quarantine guidelines and varying work environments as they carried out their work.

The 10-week summer externship course at WVU Law allows students to develop their skills in legal research, writing, analysis, interviewing and communication as they work alongside practicing attorneys and judges.

This year, nine students completed externships at the following host sites:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Around the world, corporations sometimes put profit before people. Until now, victims’ stories have been omitted from scholarship about business and human rights.

A new book, “When Business Harms Human Rights” (Anthem Press, 2020), solves that problem. Co-edited by Jena Martin, a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, it is a collection of stories from around the world, including the United States, Brazil and Cameroon.

Martin hopes the book sheds light on some of the atrocities that can happen when businesses pursue profit without regard to their impact on communities or workers. It also provides some guidance to businesses that would like to be good corporate citizens and be profitable at the same time.

"Too often in the academic world we tend to look at phenomena and policy through divorced, seemingly objective lenses,” Martin said. “But we need to remember the why. For me, the why at the heart of what I do has been and will always be humanity.”