Davidson County’s Fourth Circuit Court is a beast of a courtroom.
Often dubbed “family court,” the Fourth Circuit Court’s subject matter can make it especially relevant to everyday Nashvillians, who could end up there for any number of reasons including divorce, child support, child custody, orders of protection and adoption. Of course, the wide range of domestic topics also means an extremely busy courtroom, with dockets holding hundreds of cases. This means a large backlog of cases, and without a seasoned judge to make sure things run smoothly, anyone who ends up in family court could spend a lot more time there than they want to.
You are viewing: Who Is Running For Family Court Judge
With no Republican candidates, the March 5 Democratic primary will determine who wins the election. Four candidates are running: Stan Kweller, Audrey Anderson, Stephanie Williams and Tusca Alexis. While Gov. Bill Lee appointed Kweller to fill the seat in January 2023 following the death of Judge Philip Smith, who was reelected in 2022. The other three candidates also applied for the job. March 5 will decide who takes the seat for the remainder of the term.
Despite this election falling on Super Tuesday, the lack of competition in the presidential election could result in very low voter turnout. But further down the ballot, Nashville voters will have three local seats to fill: the assessor of property, five school board seats and the Fourth Circuit Court judge.
Here’s a look at the four candidates vying to preside over the Fourth Circuit Courtroom.
Audrey Anderson
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Anderson has lived in Davidson County since 1999. She started her legal career in litigation in Chicago, but she said that she fell in love with doing divorce work, and feels it fits her personality. She exclusively practiced family law for 20 years all over middle Tennessee. She owns her own firm and has been a mediator for almost 10 years. She believes that her experience running her own business could be easily applied to running a courtroom smoothly and efficiently. She wants to push for alternative dispute resolutions to help clean up the docket and give people without resources to obtain legal counsel an alternative to going through the courts.
Q: What do you feel makes you qualified for the position of Fourth Circuit Court Judge?
“I’m the first person in my family to become a lawyer. This is the first time I’ve ever even run for public office. Everyone in my family are school teachers, like my grandparents and my parents. People need to consider what qualifications do you want as someone that needs to be the judge and I feel like the first one is you have to find an attorney that’s been successful practicing law. And successful practicing law means that you have been out in the community practicing law. You don’t have any ethical issues, no misconduct through the Board of Professional Responsibility, somebody that’s trying to continually learn like I am. The rule 31 list of Family Law Mediation that I got was to help me learn more about the courts. I’m going to be taking the domestic violence portion of that this summer so that I can also be qualified to do domestic violence cases. So I feel like that’s the first thing that people need to look at is the lawyers that are trying to be the judges need to be successful practicing attorneys. The second thing is I think that you have to look for an attorney that’s had years of practicing in just that area of family law. And that’s what I’ve done, like years of doing the same type of work, because I’ve actually done six appeals which are very cumbersome and difficult when you also are doing litigation cases every day. I just finished an appeal in 2022 on a relocation case. You have to write a brief, you have to make an oral argument to the appellate court. So I feel like people that have had all this experience are good candidates. And then the third thing is I think you need to find someone that’s got actual litigation experience, somebody that’s been in the courtrooms a lot so they know the rules of evidence. They understand the ins and outs of domestic law. And that’s where I’m at. I’m still actively practicing and running my office. I just finished an appeal. I do mediations regularly. And you have to find somebody that’s got those three things: successfully practicing, years of practice and a lot of litigation experience because those three things I think, will give the judge discernment. You have to listen to what people are saying. And you have to hear what people are saying. And touching on what you said earlier, this is a super busy court. And I don’t want to be the judge that says to somebody ‘hurry up,’ or ‘I don’t have enough time to hear this,’ or putting a time limit on somebody that is trying to tell you something really important, but you have 100 other people to listen to and you only have eight hours to do it. I want to make sure that I can get some of the easier cases out of the docket. And then these really really difficult cases that are going to take the court’s time, give them the time that they deserve. And I feel like people in Nashville really need this because we have a very high rate of domestic violence in this area for both men and women. And the longer that people stay in these court systems and they cannot get away from each other. It makes the incidences of domestic violence increase. And I want to be super aware of this and I want to try and help people get through the court systems faster. And I think that the experience I have and the years of doing this, I will be able to do that.”
Tusca Alexis
Alexis has been practicing law for almost 34 years in a variety of areas, including criminal defense, family law, medical malpractice, personal injury, workers compensation and wrongful death. She is also a trained mediator and is commissioned to train mediators. Alexis said she has a deep sense of serving her community and has done hundreds of hours of pro bono work. She believes her experience practicing law all around the state would allow her to keep the courts organized and get through cases in a timely manner. She said she feels comfortable with a high caseload.
Q: What do you feel makes you qualified for the position of Fourth Circuit Court Judge?
“I think what makes me qualified is my experience. I have almost 34 years of experience. My diversity in the courtroom. I’ve tried numerous cases. Judge trials as well as jury trials. I have worked tirelessly. I bring a pretty straightforward record of working hard, good work ethic. An unblemished record. And I just feel those are the things that I bring to the bench. I have the experience. I know how to navigate complex legal landscapes. I know how to make decisions. I know how to listen to people, I know how to engage people. I’ve dealt with families, hundreds of families over the years. And so I feel that is what qualifies me. I think I can be fair. I bring integrity, I bring fairness, I bring experience, and just a dedication to hard work.”
Stan Kweller
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Kweller has been in private practice ever since he moved to Nashville in 1986, but prior to that he spent time working in the Sullivan County DA’s office. He has tried cases all over the state in numerous situations. He feels that experience has given him a “tremendous basis” to be a good judge. He was sworn in to fill Smith’s seat just over a year ago, and the day after his swearing-in had a 65-case motion docket that he said his experience allowed him to handle. The last 30 years of his practice focused on domestic relations, and he has experience helping victims of domestic violence. He hopes that as a judge he can work to help victims of domestic violence find the resources they need to get good legal representation in court. He said that the top priority for him as a judge is making sure he is prepared for every case on his docket so that he can keep his courtroom running smoothly.
Q: What do you feel makes you qualified for the position of Fourth Circuit Court Judge?
“A number of different things. One, my experience. The depth and breadth of that experience, not just in domestic relations, but in all sorts of cases. I have a good understanding of the criminal justice system as a prosecutor. Way back in my early career, I searched titles. So I understand things about property law that other lawyers may not really be familiar with. I have tried every kind of case you can imagine in the civil arena. I mean, I’ve represented people who are victims of employment discrimination, sexual harassment, that sort of thing. Other types of employment discrimination, age discrimination, gender-based discrimination. I have represented an individual who was the victim of a same-sex sexual harassment matter against the state of Tennessee and we successfully concluded that. I have learned patience as I have gotten older. I’m a parent, a step-parent. And that’s taught me a lot about patience. I understand the system and the way I think it should work. And I have ideas about how to make sure it works in that way for everybody. So that it’s fair. Decisions are one thing, I make decisions based on the law and facts. That’s how I have to do it. I don’t have a choice there. And some people may not like my decisions. Well, I understand that and that’s why they have the Court of Appeals and they can appeal me. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. So I think that’s what makes me qualified. I think that patience, that knowledge, that experience, wisdom perhaps? I don’t know how wise I am, but sometimes I think I am. I’ve been around for a while and have learned a lot about people and about courts.”
Stephanie Williams
Williams has been practicing family law for over 20 years. She got into family law after her own personal experience in family court in relation to her children and child support. That experience made her realize that finances are a huge barrier to so many people within the court system, and went on to commit her practice to representing people at a reduced rate, which she did for the first half of her career. She has worked in the Fourth Circuit court as a special master since 2014, when she was appointed by Smith to the role. She worked with Smith in a judicial capacity helping litigants come to amicable resolutions in their cases, and worked to make the courts more accessible and user-friendly. She resigned in April to run for the seat because she feels the combination of her personal experiences, private practice experience and judicial experience have prepared her to run the courtroom.
Q: What do you feel makes you qualified for the position of Fourth Circuit Court Judge?
“I think my qualifications in my practice. Both in and out of the courtroom I’ve been practicing for over 20 years. And the last nine have been in the Fourth Circuit Court kind of as a junior judge. And so what that did was it gave me a real opportunity to understand what it means to be a judge and what it looks like to be a judge. Without that perspective, I would not have understood what the job was. So a lot of times I think people think a judge is on a bench and he or she is listening to a case and you know, ruling on the case. And that is part of the job no doubt. My experience lends me to believe that’s about 25 to 30 percent of the job. The other part really is involved in the preparation before you go on the bench, reviewing files, understanding the legal issues, making sure you’re well versed on them so that you are not just kind of shooting from the hip or at a loss on a law or particular issue. And that might sound like why wouldn’t you know the law you’re the judge but there are little quirks. Every case has a little bit of something that might be a little different that you want to make sure you’re looking at in the way that is guided by the statute or by case law or whatever the case might be. So you spend the time preparing, you spend the time on the bench listening, you also spend an exorbitant amount of time actually writing rulings. So some cases, smaller hearings, yes, the judge can hear something in 10 minutes and then give you an answer. If a judge hears a trial that takes the course of a day or two or three that requires more of a written ruling. And there’s a lot of time that it takes to pull that together and all the elements that it takes to put into that. So there’s a lot of that, there’s a lot of thought process involved with how your dockets are run and creating your docket, what days and times do you want to hear certain things, how do you schedule things? How do you set up processes and procedures for lawyers and litigants to interact with the court to come before the court to file certain things? As I was talking about the virtual docket, you know, how do you even set that up and create that and run it and manage it? There’s staff to manage as well. And just the coordination of everybody’s roles and you know, making sure that all cylinders are moving together. And so there’s so much work within that, but to answer your question, I have the insight or knowledge and experience to really understand those things from a perspective of not just knowing how they work and how to keep them going, but knowing how they work and understanding what is really feasible in terms of what could be some tweaks and changes that can make our process more efficient and effective and better serve the community. And so those are the qualifications that I leaned into, from my professional experience again, along with my other experience in the community and personally that I think gives me an unmatched level of experience in this race.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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