Court of Appeals of Georgia

Court Centennial Committee Meeting

10:00 a.m. April 26, 2006

Third Floor Conference Room

Judicial Building

Atlanta, Georgia

Attendees:

Chief Judge John H. Ruffin, Jr., Chair

Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes	Judge John J. Ellington

Judge Yvette Miller	Judge Marion T. Pope, Jr.

Mr. Edwin Bell	Mr. Lendon Gibbs

Prof. Marjorie Girth	Mr. Scott Henwood

Ms. Vjollca Prroni	Ms. Jill Pryor

Ms. Laura Speed-Dalton	Mr. William L. Martin, III Clerk Ms. Dianne Joy, COA	Mr. Bob McAteer, COA

Ms. Holly Sparrow, COA

1.	The Chairperson called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. Minutes of the last
meeting were distributed, and a motion was adopted to allow members to
provide any necessary corrections to the Chair by the end of the week.

2.	Mr. Gibbs gave the report of the Finance Committee. He stated that the
Foundation Board	would be meeting May 12, 2006. To date, the Foundation
has received pledges or donations of $135, 000. The ultimate goal is for the
Foundation fund to reach $500,000 which would be used to educate the public
about the whole court system.

Mr. Henwood commented that he had contacted LEXIS-NEXIS and a
contribution would be made from that corporation to the fund.

3.	Next, the Chairman reported for Mr. Adams who was unable to attend the
meeting. Chief Judge Ruffin said that he had received 3 draft sections of the
Court History Book. He asked for volunteers to proof the draft sections. Judge	Barnes indicated her interest in helping with the task.

Mr. McAteer pointed out that he would be providing a number of photos that
he had collected for the video to Mr. Adams for inclusion in the book.

4.	At the Chair's request, Mr. McAteer proceeded to give his report on the
progress of the Court History Video. Mr. McAteer reported that the work was
approximately 50% completed. He stated he would be interviewing the
current judges of the Court in May, and would also be interviewing Jule
Fenton, Jr., who is the son of the Judge Jule Felton who created the Court's
motto. Mr. McAteer said that the deadline for completion of the video is
September, 2006.

5.	Chief Judge Ruffin next asked for the reports of the Program Committee
starting with Ms. Pryor and the Educational Initiative. Ms. Pryor provided the
following handouts to the committee members regarding the proposed
oratorical contest: a draft announcement of the contest, possible speech topics,	a timeline and a tentative schedule for the contest finals . (See attachments.)
The members accepted the schedule and timeline.

Ms. Pryor indicated that she had reserved the State Bar Center as the possible
site for the contest since there are a number of rooms which can be used
for the competition and the final round of the contest can be held in the mock
courtroom.

Mr. Gibbs made a motion to approve the scholarship amounts listed in the
contest announcement (First Place - $7,500, Second Place - $5,000, Third Place	$2,500 and $500 for the other quarter finalists.) The motion was seconded by
Judge Pope and unanimously approved by the members.

Chief Judge Ruffin asked if the scholarships would be given to the recipients
only if applied to tuition or school expenses. Ms. Pryor indicated that the
recipient would forfeit the scholarship if not so applied. She noted that in some	contests, the sponsor requires the award be endorsed directly to a college or
other school of higher learning. Mr. Martin suggested that the Centennial
Committee consider prorating the receipt of the award over a school year. In
that way, if the recipient left school, the full award would not paid out to
the recipient. Ms. Pryor promised to investigate methods to ensure that the
scholarship would only be available to pay educational expenses, and she will
report these methods back to the committee.

There also was a discussion of the proposed speech topics. Judge Barnes
indicated she preferred the Court of Appeals motto since it was a broad topic,
yet directly related to the Georgia Court of Appeals. Judge Pope suggested the
topic be "Separation of Powers," noting that the public is not well educated
about the value of the court system. He pointed out that a recent bar journal
article stated that 56% of the public had no confidence in the court system. Ms.	Prroni stated that she also liked the Court's motto as the topic, but felt the
students might be encouraged to make some comparisons of the U.S. court
system with other countries. Judge Barnes responded that such comparisons
would probably be more easily accommodated in a written research paper
rather than an oratorical contest. Chief Judge Ruffin noted that the committee
had discussed an essay contest, but had settled instead on the oratorical contest.	Judge Miller expressed her opinion that it would be beneficial if the committee
could identify the likely contenders before the end of this school year.

Ms. Pryor commented that it would be probably be necessary for the committee	members to generate interest in the contest by contacting individual schools as
soon as the schools opened next August.

The Chairman thanked Ms. Pryor for her work in preparing the guidelines,
schedule, and other materials for the contest and stated he looked forward to
seeing the further work of her subcommittee.

6.	The Centennial Dinner was the next topic discussed by the Committee. Ms.
Joy distributed a listing of groups which would receive invitations to the
dinner. She asked for comments about the list. There was a discussion of
whether to invite the State Bar Presidents of certain states which had been
helpful to the Committee. Dean Girth suggested that invitations to the law
schools go to the Dean and all full-time faculty.

Ms. Joy asked the committee members to provide to her as soon as possible the
number of invitations for specific individuals (not on the previous list) that they	would personally like to invite. By early summer, she would like to have
those persons' names and addresses. Ms. Joy stated that she would also need
to stay in communication with Mr. Gibbs to determine the name of the firms
or persons that would receive tables for donations to the foundation.

It was determined that the dinner invitations would be issued jointly from the
Court and Justice Served. The language of the invitations would be prepared
by the Court and Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs stated that the seating is limited to a
total of 1100 persons and each table will seat 10 guests. It was decided
that if the number of tickets sold approached the limit, a letter would be sent
out notifying the invitees that the remainder of the tickets would be obtainable
on a first come, first serve basis.

It was decided that the Foundation in consultation with the Court may issue
some complimentary tickets. Mr. McAteer expressed his desire that a few
people who had been exceptionally helpful to him on the video project might
be given complimentary tickets.

Ms. Joy stated that Mr. Andy Paul would give a demonstration after the
committee meeting of an on-line registration system that could be used to
accept credit card payments and to track ticket and guest information for the
dinner. All members were invited to attend.

Ms. Joy noted that there would need to be volunteers to assist the guests at the
dinner. There was a discussion of who might be solicited to assist. Suggestions	from committee members included: law students, Younger Lawyer Division
members, court staff and/or law firm administrative employees. No final
decision on this issue was made, but Ms. Sparrow	offered to be the volunteer
coordinator at the dinner.

Ms. Joy also raised the issue of mementos for the dinner. Each guest will
receive a Court History Book and CD. Mr. Gibbs asked that the cost of these
items be determined and given to him. Mr. McAteer indicated that 2500 copies	of the CD would be approximately $7,000. Mr. Gibbs noted that the
Foundation is providing pins to select donors. He also indicated an additional
dinner memento such as a pen or paper weight of 4-5 dollars might possibly be
within reason. Chief Judge Ruffin suggested that Ms. Joy investigate the
possibilities in a resource book he possessed.

7.	There being no further issues about the Centennial Dinner to discuss, Judge
Barnes gave her report on the Panel Discussions. She circulated to the
members the State Bar Annual Convention Agenda which listed the Separation	of Church and State Panel Discussion sponsored by the Committee. Judge
Barnes asked that if anyone wanted to invite persons outside the legal
community to the panel discussion, please let her know.

Chief Judge Ruffin announced that Mr. Hank Fellows, an attorney, had
organized a discussion on judicial independence that would be held at various

law firms once a month starting in the month of May. Details will soon be
available.

There being no further business, the Chairperson adjourned the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

____________________________________

Holly K. O. Sparrow

Deputy Court Administrator

Court of Appeals of Georgia