From the Bench
In 1998, I was elected to the State Court of DeKalb County
after a grueling nine month campaign to become the first APA
judge elected in the southeast. For the 12 years following,
I was the only APA judge serving in a court of record in
Georgia. In 2010, Judge Carla Wong McMillian, an Augusta
native, was appointed to the State Court of Fayette County
and in 2013, she was elevated to the Court of Appeals by
Governor Deal becoming the state’s first APA appellate
judge. In that same year, Savannah native, Chief Judge
Rizza Palmares O’Connor who is Filipino, was appointed by
the superior court of the Middle Judicial Circuit to become
the Chief Magistrate Judge in Toombs County. In 2012,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Anand, a South Asian, was
appointed a United States Magistrate Judge and became
the state’s first APA federal judge.
As significant, last year, in 2014, Judge Meng Lim, a
Cambodian Chinese refugee who immigrated to the United
States and settled in Bremen at the tender age of 9 after his
family escaped war-torn Cambodia and the Kumar Rouge,
won election in the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit (Polk and
Harrelson counties.) Bremen is approximately 50 miles
west of Atlanta, straight down I20 West where the Asian
population is virtually non-existent. Nonetheless, Judge Lim,
the adopted native son, was elected and became the first
APA superior court judge in Georgia. In January following
his election, Chief Justice Hugh Thompson administered the
oath of office to Judge Lim in a packed courtroom of the
Georgia Supreme Court.
As the Asian population grew in Atlanta and throughout
the state of Georgia, so have the number of APA lawyers.
Today, we have APA attorneys in all areas of practice. There
is now an APA managing partner at a large firm in Han Choi
at Ballad Spahr, a former County Attorney in Lisa Chang,
and an APA legislator in B.J. Pak who also serves on the
Governor’s Judicial Nominating Commission. There are now
10 APA judges3 in Georgia but that is still disproportionately
low compared to the percentage of the Asian population in
the state4. It has been said that Asians are visual minorities
with a presumption of foreignness5. The quest has always
been a battle for acceptance as real Americans and not
just as Asian Americans. Whether this is occurring in the
Georgia Judiciary is a question that only time and history will
tell. But for now, with the election of Judge Lim, at least the
people of Polk and Harralson counties have spoken, and the
answer is a resounding yes.
1. Rules Governing Admission To The Practice Of Law, February
12, 1992, Supreme Court of Georgia, Office of Bar Admissions, P.
1, Note 1.
2. State Bar of Georgia William B. Spann, Jr. Pro Bono Project
Award, 1995.
3