Judge Michael J. Olejasz was appointed to the bench in the First Judicial Circuit (Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio Counties) and took office on December 19, 2018. He was subsequently elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2024.

A native of Wheeling, he has a 1995 bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from West Liberty University, where he received the Criminal Justice Faculty’s Criminal Justice Award. He has a 2002 law degree from West Virginia University College of Law. As a law student, he had an externship (2001) with U.S. District Court Judge Frederick P. Stamp, Jr.

Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Olejasz had been an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Ohio County for 10 years. He previously was managing partner of the Wheeling law firm Ferro & Olejasz from 2003 to 2009. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Ohio County Bar Association and on the Wheeling Police Civil Service Commission. Before attending law school, he was a Wheeling police officer from 1994 to 1998. He was the valedictorian of his West Virginia State Police Academy class.

He has been a Board Member of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a member of the Lewis Wetzel Rifle and Pistol Club, a life member of the Wheeling Symphony Auxiliary, a member and Trustee of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 38, and a member of the West Virginia State Bar  Young Lawyers Section Executive Committee.

He and his wife, Roberta Robinson Olejasz, have two children.