As we pause to celebrate Thanksgiving, we share this message of gratitude from AOC Director Cynthia Clanton. In November, we celebrate National Veterans and Military Families Month and, in partnership with the Council of Accountability Court Judges, we collected inspiring stories from our Georgia Judges who preside over Veterans Treatment Courts to produce a social media series available on X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. November is also National Adoption Month and we enjoyed the posts from Superior Court Judge Fluker from Gwinnett County’s Adoption Day. The Judicial Council Standing Committees on Access to Justice, Judicial Workload Assessment, Legislation, and Technology held meetings with vigorous discussions this month.
Thank you to Judge Ben Land for speaking at our All Staff meeting this past month. We enjoyed interviewing Judge Sapp and Judge Guy for our Meet the Members of the Judicial Council of Georgia webpage. We also enjoyed the post about the professionalism panel at the Georgia Legal History Foundation’s CLE, which took place in Valdosta and which featured Chief Justice Michael Boggs, Justice John Ellington, and Court of Appeals Judge Trent Brown. The Office of Dispute resolution co-hosted the ADR Institute with the State Bar of Georgia on November 21st. The Georgia Child Support Commission held a full commission meeting on November 22nd. UGA Law School hosted the 2024 Judge Horace J. Johnson Jr. Lecture on Race, Law and Policy. The Atlanta Bard show was a hit featuring many Georgia judges and lawyers. On November 7th, judges from every class of court attended the Judicial Security Symposium at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth. Don’t miss the Georgia Council of Court Administrators’ new podcast (ep.13) discussing all things ADA and the Good Judge-ment Podcast, Ep. 156: AI & the Courts.
New ARPA grant awards were made recently and the Judicial Council of Georgia’s Standing Committee on Judicial Workload Assessment, chaired by Judge Rob Leonard, reviewed work from the data automation project. The Council of State Governments Justice Counts Implementation team met with Judicial Council of Georgia staff to discuss milestones and scaling the project further. The Georgia Court of Appeals recently hosted the Annual Youth Assembly’s judicial program. In other civics education news, our own Noelle Lagueux-Alvarez attended the 2024 Georgia Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference to promote our community engagement efforts and our 2025 Law Day Art Contest, which will kick off in January. Congratulations to Georgia Probate Court Judges: Michael D. Wesley, who recently won a Citizen of the Year Award; Shawn Rhodes, who was awarded the Officer of the Year Award from the Constitutional Officers Association of Georgia and who shared the accolades with his staff in Wilcox County; and Sherry Clark Moore, who won Woman of the Year from the Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce. Please save the date for the 2025 Georgia Bar, Media, and Judiciary Conference that will take place on Friday, February 21, 2025 at the State Bar building in Atlanta; all judges will be offered complimentary attendance and more details will be available soon. We leave you with these videos, published by the National Center for State Courts, titled: Unlocking Justice: Essential Guides to Navigating the Court System.
Call on us anytime. Talk to you in December.
Your JC/AOC Courts Journal team: Michelle Barclay, Noelle Lagueux-Alvarez, Bruce Shaw, and our contractor, John Ramspott