By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
When Jameria Moore walked into the Uptown Jazz Lounge on Tuesday evening for her election night watch party she wasn’t there to celebrate. “I’m just ready to serve,” she told a reporter.
According to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election Moore received 145,125 votes or 52.74 percent to defeat Republican Joel Blankenship, 129,839 votes, or 47.19 in the race for Jefferson County Probate Court Place 2 seat and to become along with fellow lawyer and sorority sister, Yashiba Blanchard, one of the two first Black female judges elected to the Court in Jefferson County, Alabama.
Probate courts have jurisdiction over matters dealing with wills, estates, real property, mental illness, and adoption.
“I know this is history…. I’m excited to have the opportunity to serve,” said Moore, who added she was happy to be elected as the same time as Blanchard, a friend and sorority sister.
“I love the fact that this is an opportunity for us as women to serve and to show how that we are qualified, and that we are ready and that we are ready to go into the probate court and be that voice and listen to our constituents, listen to those who came before us, make rulings that are just, make sure that people get their cases heard timely,” Moore said.
With dozens of her closest family, friends, colleagues, and several community leaders at the Uptown the attorney said family was some of her keys to victory. “When you’re running for election, if your family is not 100 percent in, you are not going to make it. Having my family, my close friends, my colleagues in the legal profession endorsing me, making sure that I stayed focused on the task and just kept me in the game,” she said.
Moore, 56, is a partner with a Birmingham based law firm, Sperling & Moore, PC. She has handled a wide array of cases from probate court to civil court. She is a member of the Alabama State Bar, the Birmingham Bar Association, the Alabama Lawyers Association, the Magic City Bar Association, and she is a registered mediator with the State of Alabama.
Moore is a native of Birmingham, Alabama and a graduate of West End High School. Her father, the late Willie Earl Johnson, was a coal-miner in the Jim Walter Mines and her mother, the late Betty Johnson, worked for Bruno’s as a bakery manager.
Moore studied civil engineering at Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama graduating cum laude in 1990. After graduation she worked for some of the most respected companies in the state of Alabama including James River Corporation (Pennington Alabama), BE&K Engineering (Birmingham)l Butler Manufacturing (Birmingham) and the Alabama Department of Transportation (Birmingham).
She currently serves as a municipal judge for the City of Birmingham and a Special District Court Judge in Family Court When she became a lawyer, Moore said she never dreamed about becoming a judge.
“I wanted to be, you know, like [iconic TV lawyer] Perry Mason and save everybody. However, as my career developed … and working with families and trying to keep families together when they go through a loss of a loved one, that really started to touch my heart and I recognized that the probate court is a court that can help keep families together.”
She added, “if we educate individuals on how to distribute their assets and what they need to do, I found that families stay together and when families stay together in the community, it makes our community stronger. It makes our city better, and it makes our county great.”
Each year, more than 600,000 people are served in some capacity by the Jefferson County Probate Court. Probate is considered by many as a family court to resolve or assist in matters such as settling the estate of a deceased loved one, legal name changes, adoptions, elections, marriage licenses, and the recording of land records.
Asked for advice she’d give aspiring lawyers, Moore said, “I’ll just say stay focused. Stay strong. Never let anyone turn you around or change what your goals are and find your mentor. Find someone that you can talk to find you someone that you can look up to. That’s one thing that I had. Sometimes and I’ll say this, sometimes your mentor may not always be a female, but you can have more than one mentor. You can have mentors for all different areas of your life and all aspects that you go through. It can be a family member. It can be in just different areas … Keep your head up. Keep God first.”
