As Election Day nears and early voting continues at a brisk pace, two candidates seeking to replace Circuit Judge Bill Benton are working hard taking their case to the voters.
Mac Norton and Therese Free, both Pine Bluff natives, face off in the Nov. 3 nonpartisan judicial runoff for judge for District 11, Division 3, Subdistrict 11.2 Circuit Court.
Both are attorneys practicing in Pine Bluff, dealing primarily with family law cases, which are heard in the Division 3 courtroom. Family law includes divorces, legal separations, property settlements, asset distribution, child custody and paternity.
Norton and Free both pointed to their experience as attorneys handling family law cases, Norton for 42 years, and Free for 20.
Norton said he practices mainly in Jefferson and Lincoln counties. A Pine Bluff High School graduate, he received a bachelor's degree from Hendrix College in Conway in 1975 and his juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas School of Law at Fayetteville in 1978.
"Probably 75% of my practice is in family law," Norton said, which involves situations "that directly impact the family."
Free was born in Pine Bluff and raised in Lincoln County. A graduate of Gould High School, she attended the University of Central Arkansas, receiving a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1990. She earned her juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law in 2000.
Free, a single parent of two daughters, said she finished her accounting degree when her daughters were younger and then went into accounting for a time.
"They didn't want me to go to law school, so I went to law school after they graduated high school," Free said. "So I'm 60 years old, but I've only been practicing for 20 years. It's kind of like my second career."
Free said the majority of her practice has been in family law. She said she also contracts with the state to provide legal services for the Department of Human Services.
"I'm appointed to represent parents when DHS takes their children away in Lincoln and Jefferson counties, so I see a lot of really sad stuff," she said. "Then I have a contract with the state where I represent children in foster care in two counties, plus I have my solo law practice for family law, divorce, custody, things like that."
Norton said the most routinely difficult cases in family law are custody cases that often don't lend themselves to clear-cut solutions.
"You've got to sift through everything to find the truth and make the right decision," he said. "Sometimes that's hard to do because you've got two very good parents who are fighting over custody of the kids."
"Or," he said, "you can have a case at the other extreme with two sorry parents who probably neither one of them ought to have custody."
Norton said courts have evolved over time to favor variations of shared custody agreements over giving one parent custody and the other visitation rights.
"The law says that a judge, if the circumstances present themselves and it's in the child's best interest, should try to fashion some kind of custody order that gives significant quality time to both parents as opposed to the old way that was to give mom custody and let dad visit every other weekend," he said. "That's OK if that's all dad wants, but if he's involved ... then you want him to be able to spend more time with his kids than just every other weekend."
Free said if she wins election, she'd like to implement a mandatory curriculum for parents in divorce cases.
"Parents who come through my court for divorce, custody, paternity, they'll be required to go through a one evening course that deals with co-parenting when you live in separate households," she said. "They do that in Arkansas County, and in March I sat through the class, and I loved it."
Free said suicide among teens has risen in recent years and the normal stresses of adolescence are exacerbated when parental divorce is added to the mix.
"These kids already have to deal with bullying at school and stuff like that," she said. "When parents are going through a divorce, and they're fighting and pulling the children away from each other, it's just horrible."
Both candidates, when asked why they felt they were the best qualified for the job, touted their ability to focus on the heart of what are often highly charged situations.
"I've been doing primarily family law and dealing with families for all this time," Free said. "I'm very compassionate, and I feel like it takes someone compassionate for these kinds of cases. These deal with such delicate issues, and I'm compassionate, I'm fair, I'm unbiased and I just feel like I'm the person for the job."
"You can use all the subjective terms but the main object," Norton said, "is that I've got 42 years of experience in the courtroom. Almost every week I've got a case going to trial, which may be resolved in an hour or it may be an all-day trial, but I've been in court a lot, and I've argued cases in front a lot of different judges so I know substantive law as well as procedural law. You have to be just as sharp on both if you're going to work in a courtroom setting."
Free has previously served as a prosecutor for Pine Bluff in the 6th Division Juvenile Court and as teen court judge in a diversion program for youthful offenders in the 6th Division Circuit Court. She is an advisory board member for Home Again Pine Bluff, a nonprofit outreach program that helps families transition from poverty to self-sufficiency. She is a member of the Jefferson County Bar Association, and is a member of the chambers of commerce in Pine Bluff, White Hall and Star City.
Norton has served as president of the Jefferson County Bar Association, president of the Trinity Episcopal School Board and secretary for many years on the board of directors for Seabrook Family Christian Center (formerly Seabrook YMCA). He also served as chairman of the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Commission and past president of Fifty for the Future of Pine Bluff.
