Making a Difference in the U.S.A.

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Women Judges: Pioneers at the Bench

By Michelle Austein

Women today commonly serve on the benches of the highest courts in the United States. Many of these women judges have overcome great obstacles — from discrimination to scant financial resources for their studies — before they broke new ground by achieving their positions.

Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. (Courtesy Georgia Trend)

Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, has been a "first" many times throughout her career as a lawyer and a judge: the first woman and youngest person appointed to the Supreme Court of the state of Georgia in 1992 and the first female to win a statewide contested election. After her election in 2004, she was sworn in as the first African-American woman to serve as the state's chief justice.

"Being the first was always a little difficult," she says. The American judicial system nowadays is "very different than when I joined the court and they were all white men," Sears says. "I had to fight to be accepted. I didn't do it by having a chip on my shoulder, I just worked hard."

Born in Germany when her father was an army officer, Sears was inspired to attend law school after she moved to the United States in 1955 and saw the courts issuing in sweeping civil rights changes in response to the African- American struggle for equal rights.

Carol Hunstein, presiding justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.(Courtesy Stetson University College of Law)

"I never thought [being a judge] was a possibility for me," says Carol Hunstein, presiding justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. "Each step along the way has been a happy surprise." She had problems to overcome all along, however.

Hunstein contracted polio at age two and then spent much of her childhood battling bone cancer. The cancer returned when she was 22 and a single mother. Doctors amputated her leg and told her she had about a year to live.

Despite these hardships and a constant struggle to make ends meet, Hunstein earned a scholarship to attend college and paid for law school with Social Security benefits she received after her former husband's death.

As a female lawyer, Hunstein felt some judges did not treat her fairly. One in particular commonly addressed her as "little lady" in court, which she viewed as unfair to both her and her clients. Thinking "I can be a better judge than he can be," she ran her first judicial election in 1984.

Patricia Timmons-Goodson, associate justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. (Courtesy Patricia Timmons-Goodson)

Patricia Timmons-Goodson, associate justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was also often a "first," whether as the first person in her family to attend law school or the first African- American woman to serve on North Carolina's highest court.

Timmons-Goodson chose a career in law because "when individuals had problems … they found their way to a lawyer seeking advice. That excited me then and it excites me even today."

In the United States, citizens elect their judges in at least 35 states. Each state has its own set of guidelines for these elections. In some states judges belong to a political party, in others they do not. Hunstein, Sears, and Timmons- Goodson learned from the challenges of mounting their campaigns for election.

"Campaigning is a very humbling experience, in which each citizen has a vote," Timmons-Goodson says. Running a state-wide campaign takes a tremendous amount of effort, time, and travel, she points out.

Judges are expected to be fair and impartial, which can make running a judicial-election campaign uniquely difficult. "Our masters are the law. When we run, we don't run as politicians," Sears says. "I'm very careful when I run for office that I not say 'Vote for me and I will do this.'"

The women described their experiences on the bench as both difficult and rewarding, and as an important community service.

"Judges make very difficult decisions that have an incredible impact on people's finances, their property, on their future, on their families, on their children," Hunstein says. "These are important decisions to the people who are in front of you."

Serving as one in a group of judges on a supreme court means that one needs good interpersonal skills, Timmons-Goodson says. All the justices on her court are involved in every decision. "You need to be able to get along with others, you need to know how to listen, you need to know how to communicate. You need to know how to compromise and when to compromise."

When a group makes a decision, it is critical to have a diversity of ideas represented, Timmons- Goodson points out. "Women often offer a perspective that is different than men."

"It's really important for women to serve … so that we'll be viewed as equals," Hunstein says. "We have something to offer. That's what I've done and that's what a lot of other women in the state of Georgia and across the United States have done."

The three justices and their families, left to right: Leah Ward Sears, Patricia Timmons- Goodson, Carol Hunstein. (Courtesy Ward Sears, Timmons-Goodson, Hunstein.)

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