UVA Law’s Lisa Lorish elected to VA Court of Appeals.

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Full-court press

Virginia Court of Appeals gets eight new judges, including first-ever local

By Geremia di Maro

This year, Virginia’s Democrat-led legislature authorized a historic expansion of the Virginia Court of Appeals. The move pushed the number of judges from 11 to 17, and diversified the court significantly: The new crop of judges includes four Black people, four women, two public defenders, and a legal aid attorney. One of those public defenders, Lisa Lorish, is also the first-ever Court of Appeals judge from Charlottesville.

Lorish, a lecturer at the UVA School of Law, started her term on the court September 1, and she’ll serve until 2029. She and her fellow judges will be tasked with managing a large new load of cases—thanks to legislation passed this year, Virginia now guarantees everyone the right to appeal all civil and criminal decisions by lower courts. The Old Dominion had been the only state in the country that didn’t guarantee that right.

“Being on the Court of Appeals is a very different role than my current work,” Lorish says. “Right now I’m an advocate. On the Court of Appeals, I’ll be a neutral, impartial judge who applies laws, instead of arguing under the law.”

Locally, Lorish is a member of the board of directors of the Fountain Fund, a nonprofit that provides low-interest loans to formerly incarcerated individuals, and has served as the president of the Charlottesville Albemarle Bar Association. At the law school, Lorish founded the Federal Criminal Sentence Reduction Clinic and has been a lecturer for the school’s criminal justice reform seminar.

“As a public defender, we don’t get to choose our clients. We represent whoever the court tells us to represent, and we make the best arguments we can, but

“It is significant to have someone with Lisa’s background and experience on the Court...it is important to have former public defenders and defense attorneys be appointed to the bench.”

CRYSTAL SHIN, UVA LAW

SUPPLIED PHOTO