My entire legal career, has led me to this moment seeking the office circuit judge. I sincerely hope it merits favorable consideration for your support. 

     The ability, skill, and experience that I will bring to the bench are based in large part on my time spent as a Kentucky Supreme Court Staff Attorney for Justice Martin Johnstone. For seven years, I was able to observe and learn from not only Justice Johnstone, but from the other Justices as well. But my exposure to judicial decision making did not end with the Justices. Rather, this was just a bonus to my main task of reviewing the kind of decisions circuit court judges are required to make every day.

      Almost every case I dealt with involved an appeal from a case tried in circuit court. Consequently, my job required me to carefully watch and to review dozens and dozens of trial tapes from beginning to end. Watching these tapes provided me with the rare opportunity to study, learn from, and critique circuit judges from all over the Commonwealth.

      The purpose of watching these tapes was to examine the trial judge’s rulings and examine them for error. From this experience I learned what makes a good judge and the qualities that make up great judges. But I learned a lot more than how judges think and how they rule. I also studied and learned a great deal of law.

      As a staff attorney, I wrote hundreds of draft opinions for Justice Johnstone’s review, correction, and rewrite. The issues I had to address varied greatly and included every aspect of criminal and civil law. My job for seven years with the Kentucky Supreme Court was an  apprenticeship training me for and leading me to run for the office of circuit court judge. I was lucky enough to continue this apprenticeship in private practice.

      My current practice consists of appellate and motion work. The appellate side of my practice concerns the same type of review and study of the law I was able to do while with the Kentucky Supreme Court. Of course now my review of trial court rulings is made with an advocate’s eye rather than a judicial eye. The motion side of my practice has enhanced my familiarity with the nuts-and-bolts procedural aspects of circuit court work. Both sides of this practice have exposed me to even more issues and questions regarding the proper application of the law.

      As for my legal study before going to work for Justice Johnstone, I went to law school at the University of Louisville, where I graduated Cum Laude. At the end of my second year of law school, I was awarded an internship with the Legal Aid Society, Inc. At the conclusion of the internship I continued to work for Legal Aid throughout my last year of law school. Before law school, I graduated from the University of Kentucky with a B.A. in economics. And before college, I graduated from Shelby County high school.

      In my time from high school through law school I held a number of different jobs. My first work experience was as a day laborer for local farmers, which mostly entailed pitching hay bales onto wagons. My first regular job was delivering newspapers for the Courier Journal. The other many jobs I’ve held during this time include: retail work; factory-temp work; working an assembly line packing loaves of bread into boxes for the Rainbo Bread Company; busing tables at a restaurant on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon; waiting tables at various restaurants here in Louisville; tending bar; and delivering pizza for Papa Johns. This rich mixture of blue and white collar jobs has helped keep me grounded and centered. On the bench, this experience will aid me in better understanding and relating to litigants and jurors.