November 12, 2005
Fulton County Daily Report
Wendy Moses

Judge Sharon Nelson Hill has ended her 8-year tenure at the Fulton County Juvenile Court to become the first executive director of the Georgia Appleseed Center.The office Hill will run is the 18th branch of the Appleseed Foundation, which coordinates pro bono work and develops programs to target specific needs in communities.A. Stephens Clay, a Kilpatrick Stockton partner, is chairman of the Georgia Appleseed Center's organizing committee. He said the committee has been in operation for a few months, and he expects the center to be operating in full swing by January. Its programs should be visible in the community by the middle of next year, he said.Hill and Clay said there are three projects spearheaded by the overall foundation that they may enact locally. One would serve people with mental illnesses who are in the justice system.Hill said many children come to the court with an underlying, untreated mental illness.

"They are brushing up against the justice system, and they really need to be brushing up against the mental health system," she said.The Georgia Appleseed Center also will review programs to give more parents information about how to take advantage of the No Child Left Behind Act, and to increase Latino immigrants' access to banks. They are often vulnerable to crime on paydays because they carry cash in their pockets, Hill said.Hill, who left the bench Nov. 1, said she will miss seeing the progress in families and children's lives at the court. But she added that her new role gives her the flexibility to target the issues she saw day after day in court."While I was able to try to bring about solutions from the bench, I began to see that there were many opportunities outside the courtroom," Hill said.Though she's still settling in, "My boxes are staring at me," she said, she already knows that she wants to push for counties to establish family drug courts. Family drug courts, which handle cases that involve allegations of child deprivation due to parental substance abuse, are unique because the parent must volunteer to take part and must waive confidentiality rights. That allows the Division of Family and Children Services, the court system and the treatment provider to share information to encourage a healthy recovery and reunification.Before her resignation, Hill was the state's only family drug court judge. Another juvenile court judge will replace her.Hill, who has a J.D./M.B.A. from Emory University, knows the capabilities of big firms and has hands-on experience with poverty law issues, a combination that should help her in her new job.She started out as a lawyer with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan and did pro bono work for the Saturday Lawyer Program and the Mariel Cuban Detainee Project on the side. She moved to the Atlanta Legal Aid Society and stayed for more than six years before joining Troutman Sanders. But her pro bono work didn't end. Hill developed wills and advance directives with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation while working for Troutman. She then became a staff attorney for the state Senate Judiciary Committee before being sworn in as a judge in 1997. As a judge, she founded the Special Education Advocacy Program within the county court system.The Emory Public Interest Committee at the university's law school awarded Hill its 2005 "Unsung Devotion to Those Most in Need" Award in February.The Georgia Appleseed Center's organizing committee, which will be converted into the first board, has eight people, but Clay said he expects that number to double. The committee wants to add lawyers from around the state because the center is geared toward initiating statewide efforts, Hill said. The center will look for lawyers with knowledge of banking, the media and other areas to offer their expertise in specific projects. The center is located in office space donated by Kilpatrick Stockton. "The organization has always impressed me," Clay said, for its ability to pinpoint problems specific to individual communities and develop concrete solutions. "I've seen them identify those projects and then pull the resources together and make a huge difference."