From the President
| Jurisdiction | Georgia,United States |
| Citation | Vol. 27 No. 4 Pg. 0006 |
| Pages | 0006 |
| Publication year | 2022 |
ELIZABETH L. FITE
President
State Bar of Georgia
president@gabar.org
The Balancing Act of Lawyer-Legislators
The 2022 legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly convened Jan. 10. For a maximum of 40 days in session, members of the House of Representatives and Senate introduce, debate and decide what legislative actions will benefit the state and are worthy of becoming law.
Those are not 40 consecutive days, of course. After adding on weekends, holidays and built-in days necessary for the various House and Senate committees to consider proposed legislation, the session does not customarily adjourn before the last week in March.
While that seems a short period of time for the General Assembly to review and vote on hundreds of bills and resolutions—not to mention write and approve a $27 billion annual state budget—for the representatives and senators who are also active members of the State Bar of Georgia, a quarter of the year can seem an eternity to divide their time between their law practices and doing the people’s business at the State Capitol.
For many years, my predecessors have lamented the declining number of lawyers in the Legislature. While some of the public remains under the impression that the legal profession dominates the makeup of the General Assembly, we are in fact now down to 24 Bar members out of 180 in the House and eight out of 56 in the Senate.
To get an idea of the importance of encouraging more Georgia lawyers to consider becoming a candidate and serving in the state House or Senate, we spoke to two current lawyer-legislators, one from each side of the political aisle who are both sole practitioners, and one former House member who was and is a partner in a big Atlanta firm.
Their answers to our questions provide first-hand insight into the merits of legislative service by attorneys, some of the reasons why the number of lawyer-legislators has declined and a few secrets to keeping a law practice running during the January-to-March legislative session.
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Deca-tur), who chairs the MARTA oversight committee in the House and sits on the Judiciary, Juvenile Justice and Special Civil Justice System Access committees, is in her 32nd year of service in the Legislature, including 26 years in the House (1987-92 and 2003-present) and six in the Senate (1993-98). She says experience in practicing law provides many benefits in the art and science of lawmaking.
“We’re used to conflict management, and we pay attention to the significance of the written word,” Oliver said. “We have...
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