Start Date
4-10-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
4-10-2024 2:15 PM
Description
Meet the Panelists
Justice Verda M. Colvin was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court by Governor Brian Kemp on July 29, 2021, after having been appointed to the Georgia Court of Appeals by Governor Kemp on April 9, 2020. She previously served as a Superior Court judge in the Macon Judicial Circuit which serves Macon-Bibb, Crawford, and Peach Counties having been appointed by Governor Nathan Deal on April 16, 2014. Judge Colvin grew up in southwest Atlanta. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Sweet Briar College in Virginia and her J.D. from University of Georgia School of Law. Before her appointment, she was an assistant United States attorney in the Middle District of Georgia. Prior to her service with the federal government, she was an assistant district attorney in Clayton County, Georgia, and an assistant solicitor in Athens in Clarke County. She also served as assistant general counsel at Clarke-Atlanta University. Her service followed her private practice in Charlotte, North Carolina. Judge Colvin is committed to service professionally and personally. She is a member of the Macon Bar Association, Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, Georgia Association of Women Lawyers, the Rotary-Downtown Club, Fuller Center of Macon, Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy, Mount de Sales Board of Trustees, Jack & Jill of America (Macon Chapter), and several Inn of Courts. She also serves as cochair of ONE MACON. Additionally, she has continually served on various committees in her role as a jurist.
Charles G. Geyh serves as Indiana University Distinguished Professor and the John F. Kimberling Chair in Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law where he teaches courses on civil procedure, legal profession, and judicial conduct. His work on judicial conduct, ethics, independence, administration, practice, and procedure has appeared in more than 100 books, articles, book chapters, reports, and other publications. Geyh has served as an expert witness in the senate impeachment trial of Federal District Judge G. Thomas Porteous; director of and consultant to the ABA Judicial Disqualification Project; and as reporter to four ABA Commissions (the Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the Commission on the 21st Century Judiciary, the Commission on the Public Financing of Judicial Campaigns, and the Commission on the Separation of Powers and Judicial Independence). He has also served as director of the American Judicature Society's Center for Judicial Independence; consultant to the Parliamentary Development Project on Judicial Independence and Administration for the Supreme Rada of Ukraine; assistant special counsel to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on the impeachment and removal of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen; consultant to the National Commission on Judicial Discipline & Removal; and legislative liaison to the Federal Courts Study Committee. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 1980 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1983, after which he clerked for the Honorable Thomas A. Clark on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; worked as an associate at the Washington D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling; and served as counsel to the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. His teaching career began in 1991. Geyh joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1999, has served as Maurer Law School’s associate dean for research, and is the recipient of a Carnegie Fellowship, three faculty fellowships, four trustees teaching awards, the Wallace teaching award, and an Indiana University Bicentennial Medal.
Marc Thomas Treadwell is a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Georgia. Judge Treadwell joined the court in 2010 after his unanimous confirmation by the senate. He served two three-year terms as the Eleventh Circuit’s representative on the Judicial Conference’s Codes of Conduct Committee. He served as the court's chief judge from July 1, 2020 to May 31, 2024. Before his appointment, he was in private practice in Atlanta and Macon.
Judge Treadwell is a judicial fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He is a trustee for Mercer University, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, and the Walter F. George Foundation. He is a former chairman of the Vineville United Methodist Church Administrative Council. He taught Georgia civil procedure at Mercer Law School from 1999 to 2023.
Born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Judge Treadwell earned his B.A. from Valdosta State University in 1978 and his J.D. from Mercer University in 1981.
Recommended Citation
Colvin, Verda; Geyh, Charles; and Treadwell, Marc T., "Panel 3: The Lawyer as Judge or Other Neutral Actor" (2024). Mercer Law Review Symposium. 4.
https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/symposium/parts_of_a_whole/friday/4
Panel 3: The Lawyer as Judge or Other Neutral Actor
Meet the Panelists
Justice Verda M. Colvin was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court by Governor Brian Kemp on July 29, 2021, after having been appointed to the Georgia Court of Appeals by Governor Kemp on April 9, 2020. She previously served as a Superior Court judge in the Macon Judicial Circuit which serves Macon-Bibb, Crawford, and Peach Counties having been appointed by Governor Nathan Deal on April 16, 2014. Judge Colvin grew up in southwest Atlanta. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Sweet Briar College in Virginia and her J.D. from University of Georgia School of Law. Before her appointment, she was an assistant United States attorney in the Middle District of Georgia. Prior to her service with the federal government, she was an assistant district attorney in Clayton County, Georgia, and an assistant solicitor in Athens in Clarke County. She also served as assistant general counsel at Clarke-Atlanta University. Her service followed her private practice in Charlotte, North Carolina. Judge Colvin is committed to service professionally and personally. She is a member of the Macon Bar Association, Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, Georgia Association of Women Lawyers, the Rotary-Downtown Club, Fuller Center of Macon, Macon-Bibb Citizen Advocacy, Mount de Sales Board of Trustees, Jack & Jill of America (Macon Chapter), and several Inn of Courts. She also serves as cochair of ONE MACON. Additionally, she has continually served on various committees in her role as a jurist.
Charles G. Geyh serves as Indiana University Distinguished Professor and the John F. Kimberling Chair in Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law where he teaches courses on civil procedure, legal profession, and judicial conduct. His work on judicial conduct, ethics, independence, administration, practice, and procedure has appeared in more than 100 books, articles, book chapters, reports, and other publications. Geyh has served as an expert witness in the senate impeachment trial of Federal District Judge G. Thomas Porteous; director of and consultant to the ABA Judicial Disqualification Project; and as reporter to four ABA Commissions (the Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the Commission on the 21st Century Judiciary, the Commission on the Public Financing of Judicial Campaigns, and the Commission on the Separation of Powers and Judicial Independence). He has also served as director of the American Judicature Society's Center for Judicial Independence; consultant to the Parliamentary Development Project on Judicial Independence and Administration for the Supreme Rada of Ukraine; assistant special counsel to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on the impeachment and removal of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen; consultant to the National Commission on Judicial Discipline & Removal; and legislative liaison to the Federal Courts Study Committee. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 1980 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1983, after which he clerked for the Honorable Thomas A. Clark on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; worked as an associate at the Washington D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling; and served as counsel to the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. His teaching career began in 1991. Geyh joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1999, has served as Maurer Law School’s associate dean for research, and is the recipient of a Carnegie Fellowship, three faculty fellowships, four trustees teaching awards, the Wallace teaching award, and an Indiana University Bicentennial Medal.
Marc Thomas Treadwell is a United States District Judge for the Middle District of Georgia. Judge Treadwell joined the court in 2010 after his unanimous confirmation by the senate. He served two three-year terms as the Eleventh Circuit’s representative on the Judicial Conference’s Codes of Conduct Committee. He served as the court's chief judge from July 1, 2020 to May 31, 2024. Before his appointment, he was in private practice in Atlanta and Macon.
Judge Treadwell is a judicial fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He is a trustee for Mercer University, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, and the Walter F. George Foundation. He is a former chairman of the Vineville United Methodist Church Administrative Council. He taught Georgia civil procedure at Mercer Law School from 1999 to 2023.
Born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Judge Treadwell earned his B.A. from Valdosta State University in 1978 and his J.D. from Mercer University in 1981.