M. Blane Michael
United States federal judge
Martin Blane Michael (February 17, 1943 – March 25, 2011) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Education and career
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Michael grew up in Grant County, West Virginia, and in 1965 he earned an Artium Baccalaureus degree, magna cum laude, at West Virginia University, where he was student body president and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then attended New York University School of Law, where he earned a Juris Doctor in 1968. He spent three years in private practice (at the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell) before becoming an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1971, handling criminal cases. Michael's contemporaries in the United States Attorney's Office included John M. Walker Jr. and Richard Ben-Veniste. For family reasons Michael returned to his home state in 1972, becoming a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of West Virginia. From 1973 to 1975 he was in private practice in Petersburg, West Virginia, and he served for one year as a law clerk to United States District Judge Robert Earl Maxwell of the Northern District of West Virginia from 1975 to 1976.
After John D. Rockefeller IV was elected Governor of West Virginia, Michael served from 1977 to 1980 as Counsel to the Governor. In 1981 he returned to private practice (at the state's oldest and largest law firm, Jackson Kelly, in Charleston, West Virginia), where he worked as a commercial litigator until his appointment to the Court of Appeals in 1993.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “M. Blane Michael” as united States federal judge. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as united States federal judge. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15451764. VIAF identifies the subject as 121768564. The Library of Congress control number is no2010099479. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2011, 1965 and 1968.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “M. Blane Michael”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow M. Blane Michael primary sources, M. Blane Michael archive and Blane research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “M. Blane Michael”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “M. Blane Michael” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.