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West Virginia’s divorce professionals, verified.

Real attorneys, mediators, CDFAs and therapists — credentials checked against West Virginia’s own official directories, not paid placement.

Every professional below is currently at the Listed tier: credentials independently verified from an official West Virginia source, automatically included whether they’ve opted into The Cusp or not — the same way a bar association directory works. Nobody here has paid for placement, and none of them have published pricing or been reviewed yet.

Listed — every entry below Verified Pricing — not yet open in West Virginia Community Vetted — not yet open in West Virginia
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What “verified” means on this page

Not every check is the same check, and most directories hide that. Every listing below says which kind it was, and the date we did it — because a license check is a photograph, not a guarantee. Somebody confirmed in August can be suspended in September.

  • State registerChecked against the state’s own licensing, court or bar record.
  • Issuing bodyChecked against the organization that grants this credential — authoritative for the credential, but it is their own list.
  • Membership listingA membership directory. Joining is voluntary, and this is not a license check.
  • Self-reportedTaken from this person’s own website. Nobody independent confirmed it, and we are re-checking these against an official register.
  • Source linkedChecked against the source linked, which is not a state register.

Nobody paid to be listed here, and nobody can. Listings are not for sale, and no professional on this page has paid us anything to appear on it or to appear higher on it. If we are ever paid in connection with anyone listed here, it will say so on this page, next to that listing. Most of these were confirmed against a state register. A small number were not, and rather than quietly presenting those as equivalent, they are marked and we are re-checking them.

Family law & divorce attorneys

Verified via the state’s official bar / attorney licensing source, filtered to family law practice and active status.

Berkeley County
John Mark Sutton
Sutton & Janelle, PLLC · Berkeley County (Martinsburg)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 7240
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Cabell County
D. Scott Bellomy
Bellomy & Turner, L.C. · Cabell County (Huntington)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 8028
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Kanawha County
R. Lyne Ranson
Lyne Ranson Law Offices, PLLC · Kanawha County (Charleston)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 3018
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Allyson E. Hilliard
Hilliard & Swartz LLP · Kanawha County (Charleston)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 9345
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Mark A. Swartz
Hilliard & Swartz LLP · Kanawha County (Charleston)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 4807
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Monongalia County
Michelle Lindsay Bechtel
Bechtel Family Law, PLLC · Monongalia County (Morgantown)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 8781
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Brianna Whiteman McCardle
Ardent Legal, PLLC · Monongalia County (Morgantown)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 12836
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory
Wood County
William B. Summers
Summers & Associates · Wood County (Parkersburg)
Active member, WV State Bar — Bar ID 7239
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia State Bar — Active WV Attorneys Directory

Certified mediators

Verified via an official court-connected or state-recognized mediator roster.

Berkeley County
Emily Neely
Independent practice · Berkeley County (Martinsburg)
WV Supreme Court court-approved mediator roster; also serves Jefferson County
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Judiciary — Court-approved Mediator List (Aug 2025)
Harrison County
Linda Hausman
Kaufman & McPherson, PLLC · Harrison County (Bridgeport)
WV Supreme Court court-approved mediator roster; also serves ten neighboring counties
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Judiciary — Court-approved Mediator List (Aug 2025)
Kanawha County
Michelle Fizer
Independent practice · Kanawha County (Charleston)
WV Supreme Court court-approved mediator roster
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Judiciary — Court-approved Mediator List (Aug 2025)
Ohio County
Shari McPhail
McPhail Law · Ohio County (Wheeling)
WV Supreme Court court-approved mediator roster; also serves five other counties; active WV Bar member (ID 9500)
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Judiciary — Court-approved Mediator List (Aug 2025)
Raleigh County
Marie Catherine Bechtel
Independent practice · Raleigh County (Beckley)
WV Supreme Court court-approved mediator roster; also serves Fayette, Nicholas and Greenbrier; active WV Bar member (ID 9132)
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Judiciary — Court-approved Mediator List (Aug 2025)

Therapists & counselors, divorce/family focus

License verified active against the state’s official license-lookup tool.

Cabell County
Shawna Bumgardner
Private practice · Cabell County (Huntington)
Licensed Professional Counselor, license 2746 — current, no disciplinary action
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via WV Board of Examiners in Counseling — public license registry
Kanawha County
Ashley Holtsclaw
Inspiring Horizons Counseling & Wellness, LLC · Kanawha County (Charleston)
Licensed Professional Counselor, license 2625 — current, no disciplinary action
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via WV Board of Examiners in Counseling — public license registry
Monongalia County
Layne Hitchcock
Private practice · Monongalia County (Morgantown)
Licensed Professional Counselor, license 2267 — current, no disciplinary action
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via WV Board of Examiners in Counseling — public license registry
Amy Zeiders
Private practice · Monongalia County (Morgantown)
Licensed independent clinical social worker, license DP00943072, on the WV Board of Social Work register
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via West Virginia Board of Social Work — license verification
Raleigh County
Dwayne Franklin Masters
Private practice · Raleigh County (Beckley)
Licensed Professional Counselor, license 1622 — current, no disciplinary action
Listed
State registerChecked 20 Aug 2026Verified via WV Board of Examiners in Counseling — public license registry

Not included yet. Attorneys: Worth reading before you call anyone. The State Bar’s live member search is behind a bot check we don’t work around, so each lawyer was confirmed instead against the Bar’s own published roster of active members — an official document, but the 2024–25 edition, which is the most recent posted. A lawyer’s status could in principle have changed since. Confirm on the Bar’s live lookup before you rely on it. Separately, the roster confirms active status but not practice area, so the family-law focus comes from each firm’s own site.

Not included yet. CDFAs: No West Virginia CDFAs could be confirmed. IDFA’s directory only returns results through a form behind a "prove you’re human" check we don’t work around. Several individual profiles surfaced in searches, but every one that loaded belonged to someone in another state — mostly Virginia, which is easy to confuse. Rather than guess, this is empty.

Not included yet. Mediators: The court’s index page for its mediator roster returns an error, so we cited the roster document itself — the Supreme Court’s "Mediator by County" list dated 27 August 2025, published on the court’s own site and the list courts draw on for family-court referrals. One caveat: it names each mediator and the counties they cover but doesn’t separately mark who takes family cases, so that distinction isn’t stated on the official roster.

Not included yet. Therapists: West Virginia’s license lookups confirm name, type, number, expiry and disciplinary history but don’t publish practice addresses, so the city and practice name come from each therapist’s own listing. One well-known Morgantown divorce counselor was dropped after the state registry showed a disciplinary flag.

What these professionals typically cost in West Virginia

West Virginia falls in the South region on The Cusp’s cost model — illustrative, member-reported ranges, not an official fee survey or a quote.

ItemReported range
Attorney, uncontested$800–$2,800
Attorney, contested$3,500–$16,000+
Mediator, full case$80–$250/hr

See the main directory page for the full regional cost breakdown across all four professional types.

Know someone in West Virginia who needs this?

Sending one person a straight answer about money is more useful than most advice. Nothing here asks for their real name, and nobody finds out they looked.

Doing your own West Virginia filing instead?

The West Virginia Divorce Kit has the exact forms, deadlines, and rejection traps for your county.

Open the West Virginia kit →
Before you pay anyone

Everybody on this page charges for their time. If money is the constraint — and for most people reading this it is — these two come first, and we earn nothing from either.

Sources last checked20 August 2026
Page published19 August 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the dates recorded against the individual citations on this page. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.