Presiding District Judge Michelle M. Thomason (formerly Judge Michelle Hart) was appointed by Governor Bob Riley to the District Court on August 29, 2006, and is currently in her 17th year on the bench. Upon taking the bench in 2006, was specially appointed as a Circuit Judge, as she hears family court cases in the Circuit Court such as divorces and custody matters, as well as Protection from Abuse cases. Additionally, she handles District Court dockets involving traffic and criminal cases and has handled all the misdemeanor domestic violence cases in the County since 2006. She also presides over the Baldwin County Veterans Court, which she founded in 2014.
Judge Thomason graduated from Mobile College (now the University of Mobile) with a Bachelor of Science in business in 1992 and received her Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1995. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she was a partner in the law firm of Pearson, Cummins & Hart, where she practiced civil litigation and family law for eleven years before taking the bench.
She has served the State and her community in many leadership roles for many years, including serving currently on the State Judicial Resource Reallocation Commission and the Supreme Court Committee for the Rules of Judicial Administration, having been appointed to both by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Further, she served for many years as District Judge Chair of the Judicial Education Committee at the Alabama Judicial College and is Past President of the Alabama District Judges Association. Judge Thomason serves her community as a founding Board Member of Baldwin Substance Abuse Services and is a member of Impact 100. She is also a Paul Harris Fellow and member of the Fairhope Sunset Rotary Club and is currently the club’s President Elect.
Judge Thomason is committed to judicial education, and to the education of others in the law. She is a frequent seminar speaker throughout the State to lawyers, judges, clerks and judicial assistants, and trains newly elected or appointed judges each year. Although none was required of a judge in Alabama until this past year, she recently received an award from the Administrative Office of Courts and the Chief Justice for over 800 hours of continuing legal education since taking the bench, the highest number of educational hours of any judge on the bench in Alabama.
Judge Thomason is married to Tony Thomason. She has one son, Jonathan, who is the pastor at Mulder Methodist Church located in Wetumpka, a daughter-in-law, Liz, and three grandchildren.