By Anne Monlezun With an interesting background as the granddaughter of the manager of the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, Judge Billie Woodard grew up with three sisters in a small Chesapeake Bay, Virginia town of 750 people. Her father – a talented tailor and manufacturer – and her loving, working mother, provided a foundation for a bright sound future for their four daughters. After obtaining a psychology degree from the College of William & Mary, living and working in Rome for a year, and working in hospital administration, Woodard married and moved to Lake Charles where she lived for almost 25 years. She attended Law School in New Orleans and afterwards, opened her own law practice in Lake Charles. The rest is history. Woodard eventually was elected Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge in Calcasieu Parish. When she lost that seat in 2004, she decided it was time for another adventure.Recently, Woodard returned to visit her many friends in Lake Charles and Southwest Louisiana with news of the past 11 years of a diversified, new life in New York City. From starring in many off, off Broadway shows (including one as a champion lady boxer), to teaching at Harvard (which she has done every year since 1999), and serving on the global Charter Institute of Arbitrators Examinations Board headquartered in London, Woodard hasn’t stopped there. Woodard is leading a double life as an arbitrator and mediator for the American Arbitration Association
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and as a mediator for New York Courts, while pursuing a career in the performing arts. She, along with a coauthor, wrote a musical – Choking Out the Kudzu.. the Will and the Courage. It has been performed in Maryland, Nashville, and Manhattan, with Woodard directing all the performance. “The play is based on a true story of a married couple with a belittled wife who has to overcome her family’s criticism, as well as her own doubts and fears, to become the person she dreamed that she was meant to be,” Woodard says. The audience enjoys one woman’s journey that is profound and steeped with humor and which can inspire all of us to “feel our fear” and “do it anyway” by following our dream. Woodard earned her Equity and SAG union cards, entitling her to audition for theatre on Broadway and
Vol. 7 • No. 23