At first glance, Pam Lambert is a petite, unassuming woman with an easy smile. On the job, however, she is a forceful attorney, ready to take on any opponent for her clients.

Becoming a lawyer was not her first career choice. After graduating from Gilbert High School, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Marshall University. She wanted to become a teacher, but the salary at that time wasn’t enough to keep her interest.

Instead, she went to work for the federal government — the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers — as a park ranger at the still developing R. D. Bailey Lake project. At 22 years of age, she became the first female park ranger in West Virginia.

The job was the perfect fit for her: She could often work outdoors and indulge her enjoyment of fishing.

“At the time, I had a boss I wasn’t particularly fond of and I was interested in environmental law,” she explained with a laugh. “I came home one day, and Dad and I had a long talk. He said, ‘Pambo, you’re just windy enough to be a good lawyer.’

“I checked into law school. I applied to 10 schools, thinking if I got in, fine, if I didn’t, fine.”

She also investigated obtaining her doctorate.

“I was determined I wasn’t going to stay with that boss,” she said, laughing.

“I was the only child and I was spoiled rotten. Being a lawyer would allow me to stay home so I could stay near my parents,” she recalled.

Lambert did get accepted into several of those law schools, but her dad, true to form, steered her toward Ohio Northern University.

“There wasn’t a lot to do there but study,” she said, adding that is why her dad most likely wanted her to attend that particular school.

“I was blessed,” she emphasized. “I made pretty good grades and took some extra classes and finished in two-and-a-half years.”

Her parents, Carl and Phyllis Lambert, supported her in every endeavor, giving her a nudge when she needed it from time to time. Her dad passed away last October.

“They struggled to put me through school,” she said. “I don’t know how on earth they did it. I have a lot to be thankful for; I have a lot to be proud of. I get chills when I think about it.

“For the most part, my grandmother raised me. Mom was working and going to school. Granny always fixed dinner for us and she would tell Dad if I had been good or bad.”

It was Lambert’s love of fishing that landed her in the “bad” category on one of those days.

She wanted to go fishing, but her grandmother said no. Lambert went anyway, knowing she would surely be in trouble with her grandmother. When her grandmother came after her, Lambert swam to the other side.

“I knew Granny couldn’t swim,” she recalled with a laugh. “I sat across the creek all day long. I just knew when Daddy came home everything would be OK.

“When Daddy came home, I got a whipping anyway.”

As “painful” as that lesson might have been, others have been more difficult.

“Even though I tend to be the type of person who is loyal, fights for the underdog and tries to avoid making enemies, I have found that, no matter how hard I try, there are going to be people whom I cannot please and those who do not like me. That’s the hardest lesson I have learned, and sometimes it’s still hard for me to accept,” she noted.

Today, at the age of 53, she has been practicing law for 26 years. And that list of “firsts” is still growing. She became the first female prosecutor in Wyoming County; she defended the first Clean Water Act case in the nation; she was the first female elected to the National Independent Coal Association Board of Directors, among numerous others.

“I can’t say I’ve ever regretted it,” she said of her career choice, “but there have been days when I would much rather have been in the woods.

“I really enjoy helping people and working with people.

“There is some good in everybody; it’s just harder to find in some. Papaw used to say, ‘The sun don’t shine on the same dog all the time.’ I try to remember that,” she said.

“There’s some good, some bad ... practicing law has an awful lot of good points.

“For some people who come in here, getting their will made is the most important thing they’ve ever done in their lives, but they can’t afford to pay. They pay me in tomatoes, in homemade jellies. One woman brought me a beautiful homemade quilt.

“These are the things that are priceless to me.”

Along with her husband, Jim Joyce, and son, David, the three make their home in Hanover, though her office is in Gilbert, just across the Wyoming-Mingo County line.

“Depending on which way you’re going, I live in the first house in Wyoming County, or the last,” she joked.

The three also share that home with 10 dogs and two cats, all of them strays that Lambert couldn’t bear to see go hungry.

The last dog dropped off at their home had a broken back. Two veterinarians recommended the dog be put to sleep. Lambert wouldn’t hear of it, and now the dog is doing fine.

The two men in her life also share her passion for fishing and her love for old cars and trucks. On this day, she points to a 1950 Chevrolet pickup parked outside her office that she drove to work.

“It’s something we can do as a family,” she said.

Lambert didn’t have David until she was 38.

“I was scared to death to have children,” she said. “If I had known how much fun it was going to be, I would have had a zillion. We have so much fun.

“God has really blessed me.”

— E-mail: mcbrooks@

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