Lizz Kuhn
Occupation: Partner attorney at North Metro Litigators
Previous elected offices held: None.
Other community service experience: UPWARD Basketball Coach for Alpharetta Baptist church; the wrestling team mom and manager for the mighty-mites wrestling feeder program; member of the PTO; assisted the startup of cheerleading and basketball feeder programs; helps Team Boobulah Breast cancer walk through Temple Kol Emeth; sponsors the Team Luke ATL Cystic Fibrosis walk; working on community outreach to feed the students of Fulton County during the CV-19 crisis.
What is motivating you to run for this office?
It is time for me to give back to my community. As a child, I was a victim of a broken system. As a teacher, I saw judges rubber-stamp punishments for children without an adequate inquiry into the situation. As a lawyer, many clients, friends, persons in law enforcement and lawyers complain about justice not being properly applied and complain about the inefficiency of the system. While we do have the best system of justice in the world, there is room for improvement. The community benefits from an improved system and I am committed to the cause.
What is the biggest issue facing the court system and how will you address it?
A clogged court system means not everyone gets timely access. For civil cases, holding pretrial conferences early to identify potential issues and creating a strategy will help unclog the dockets. For criminal cases, it is unnecessary to call all cases for trial at one time when the judge can coordinate ahead of time and call in cases that are ready. Criminal cases take days. It also costs the county thousands of dollars to subpoena law enforcement to sit around on a case that is not being heard. Having law enforcement wait in court inhibits their ability to keep us safe!
What strengths and weaknesses have the coronavirus pandemic crisis revealed in the court system?
The coronavirus crisis made the court system realize it can run more efficiently because of technology for status conferences and motions hearings. This is forcing lawyers to be more organized and share information in advance. This makes hearings run more efficiently and timely. Georgians are not being charged for the drive to and from court and sitting-around time, and people are not forced to take an entire day off from work and sit for hours waiting their turn. Downside, family violence cases are not being heard and innocent people are prevented from having contact with their children.