Michael West is a Consumer Financial Services attorney with more than 16 years of professional legal experience, including over 12 years as a career law clerk. In this role, he managed a heavy civil caseload; drafted thousands of orders and recommendations, as well as findings of fact and conclusions of law; counseled his judges with respect to pending motions, courtroom proceedings, and confidential settlement conferences; and assisted with civil trials and the occasional misdemeanor criminal trial.
Before beginning his legal career, Michael worked as a laboratory associate and later laboratory technician for the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University, where he improved database taxonomy and search optimization for over one million archaeological artifacts.
Professional Highlights
Judicial Clerkships
Hon. Kathryn A. Starnella, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, 2023-2025
Hon. Kristen L. Mix, retired, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, 2011-2023
Hon. Nancy K. Johnson, retired, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2009-2011
Judicial Internships
Hon. Stephen W. Smith, retired, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2007
Hon. Nancy K. Johnson, retired, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2007
Speaking Engagements
"Far From Home: Sardinia During the First World War, 1917-1919," Sardinia Historical Society, November 12, 2022
"Silicone Oil and Conservation of Complex Artifact Systems," 59th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, March 2008
"The Conservation of a Wooden Chest From the 1686 Wreck of La Belle," Shipwreck Weekend 2003, College Station, April 5, 2003
Publications
"Final Report on the Intact Chest and Contents of Box Feature No. 10," La Belle: The Archaeology of a Seventeenth-Century Vessel of New World Colonization, Texas A&M University Press, 2017
"An Intact Chest From the 1686 French Shipwreck La Belle: Artifacts From the La Salle Colonization Expedition to the Spanish Sea," Lambert Academic Publishing, 2011
Credentials
Education
University of Houston Center (J.D. 2009)
President, Student Bar Association
Senior Articles Editor, Houston Journal of International Law
UHLC Student Delegate, American Bar Association, Annual Conference
CALI Award for Future Excellence in Federal Indian Law
Texas A&M University (M.A. 2005)
Graduate Student Representative, Honor Council
Student Representative, Graduate Student Council
Advisory Committee, Recreation Center
Cornell University (B.A., cum laude, 2001)
Laboratory Assistant, Aegean Dendrochronology Project
Field Technician, Chemung Mastodon Excavation
Dean's List
Admissions
Colorado
Texas