Chief Justice Sears to join Chicago law firm

Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears’ name has popped up on short lists of possible nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. But her immediate plans are to join a law firm, teach a law school course and work for a think tank.

“I’m going full steam ahead,” said Sears, 53, the nation’s first black woman to preside as chief justice of a state Supreme Court.

On Oct. 15, Sears will begin working in the Atlanta offices of Schiff Hardin, a 400-lawyer firm headquartered in Chicago. Sears said she would be a partner with the firm and work only half time during her first year there.

In October, Sears announced she would step down from the state Supreme Court when her term as chief justice expires at the end of June. She will be succeeded as chief by Justice Carol Hunstein. Gov. Sonny Perdue will name Sears’ replacement.

The day Sears made her announcement she was leaving the court, Schiff Hardin “called and said they wanted to talk to me immediately,” Sears said in an interview.

Just a few months earlier, Schiff Hardin and The History Makers honored Sears as a distinguished African-American leader at an event at the Woodruff Arts Center. “I was very impressed,” Sears said of the firm.

Sears said she found the firm’s white-collar crime work very appealing. She also would like to do appellate work for the firm.

Starting Aug. 15, Sears also will serve as the William Thomas Sears Distinguished Fellow in Family Law for the Institute for American Values. The one-year fellowship is named after Sears’ brother, Tommy, who took his life in November 2007 after returning from Iraq. He was 53.

“Tommy had major issues with the family law system,” Sears said. “It made it very clear to me that something has to be done to change the way the legal system handles family problems.”

Sears is a board member for the New York-based Institute for American Values. Last year, the group co-sponsored a Georgia Supreme Court summit on children, marriage and family law.

Sears has spoken out against the decline of marriage, citing the strains so many divorces put on the courts and the harm they have on children. Her message: “Children do better with parents together.”

While on her fellowship, Sears also will teach a seminar, “Contemporary Issues in Family Law,” at the University of Georgia Law School.

Since U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter recently announced he will step down from the high court at the end of the term, Sears has been mentioned as a possible nominee to succeed him. When asked about her chances or expectations, Sears declined comment.

“It has been extremely flattering,” she said of seeing her name on legal experts’ short lists. “It shows how well people think of me.”