New Members Join Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism

ATLANTA – Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Meng H. Lim of Tallapoosa, Court of Appeals of Georgia Judge-Elect Kenneth B. Hodges III of Albany and Toombs County Chief Magistrate Judge Rizza P. O’Connor of Vidalia have been appointed to serve on the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism.

Lim will serve a two-year term on the Commission as a Superior Court designee. He was elected in 2014 as Georgia’s first Asian American Superior Court judge, and he serves on the Supreme Court Commission on Interpreters.

Lim is a graduate of Emory University and the Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1998.

Hodges will serve a one-year term on the Commission as the current president of the State Bar of Georgia. He was elected in May 2018 as a judge of the Court of Appeals and will take office in January 2019. He previously served as district attorney of the Dougherty Judicial Circuit and has since been engaged in the private practice of law. He is a past chairman of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia and past president of the District Attorneys’ Association of Georgia. Hodges is a graduate of Emory University and the University of Georgia School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1991.

O’Connor will serve a one-year term on the Commission as the current president of the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia. She previously worked as an assistant district attorney for the Middle Judicial Circuit and the Eastern Judicial Circuit. O’Connor is a graduate of the Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 2011.

The Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, the first body of its kind in the nation, was created in 1989 by the Supreme Court of Georgia with the primary charge of enhancing professionalism among Georgia’s lawyers.

Chief Justice Harold D. Melton is the current chair of the Commission. In carrying out its charge, the Commission provides ongoing attention and assistance to the task of assuring that the practice of law remains a high calling, enlisted in the service of client and public good.

Composed of representatives of the organized bar, practicing bar, judiciary, law schools and the public, the Commission serves as the institutional framework for sustaining an environment that fosters professionalism in the legal community.