Family Law

In an article published on WSBTV.com, Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears is suggesting that, since

the anti-smoking movement helped snuff out rising tobacco use rates, a similar campaign is needed to reverse an uptick in divorces.Sears, who is stepping down from the court on June 30, told an audience Thursday in Athens she will spend a "substantial amount" of time after leaving the court working to reinvigorate marriages and discourage divorce and family abandonment.Some 43 percent of all marriages end in divorce within 15 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sears, who is divorced, pointed to statistics that showed children of divorced couples face increased risks of poverty, child abuse, emotional distress and mental illness.She noted that in Georgia, more than 60 percent of all civil cases heard at the trial court level involve issues concerning children and families -- more than all criminal cases combined."As a mechanism for signaling to young people the right time and the right person with whom to have a baby, marriage has no peer," she said in prepared remarks. "Marriage is also the best child welfare, crime prevention and anti-poverty program we have. We must, therefore, protect it."

Sears, who has served on the Georgia Supreme Court since 1992, has made preserving marriage one of the centerpieces of her tenure as the court's chief justice.The court established a first-of-its-kind commission that gathered experts to find ways to reduce unnecessary divorce rates and launched a campaign to publicize the toll a divorce takes on a family.Sears has not yet announced where she will work when she steps down. She has said she will seek jobs in the private sector, perhaps as a university president or at a civil rights law firm.She has also been mentioned as a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee, and she has not ruled out an eventual return to public service. Whatever she does, she said she will work to encourage lasting marriage in all sectors of society."It's for us to muster the determination and effort needed to save our children and ultimately our country from self-destruction," she said. "The alternative is to accept as inevitable that some of our children will enjoy a privilege that others are denied."

SOURCE: WSBTV.com