[1] Magistrates have jurisdiction over civil cases in which the financial amount in dispute is less than ten thousand dollars.
In criminal cases they issue and record affidavits, complaints, arrest warrants, and search warrants, as well as set bail and make decisions concerning proposed plea agreements, the collection of courts costs, cash bonds, and fines.
Magistrates issue emergency protective orders in cases involving domestic violence.
[3] Unlike the Circuit Courts and justices of the Supreme Court of Appeals, where judges must be West Virginia licensed attorneys for at least five years before running, magistrates only require a high school diploma and are not required to be licensed attorneys.
Although there is nothing preventing a lawyer from running for the office and they have occasionally been elected, most magistrates in West Virginia are, in fact, not attorneys.