Michael J. Classens, a general-practice attorney who has been based in Statesboro for 37 years while representing clients in courts at all levels from municipal to federal, qualified Monday, March 7, 2022, as a candidate for judge of the Bulloch County State Court.
He will be a challenger for incumbent State Court Judge Joseph Cushner, who also qualified Monday for the May 24 nonpartisan general election. After longtime Bulloch County State Court Judge Gary Mikell retired in the fall of 2019, Classens offered for the judgeship, anticipating a special election. But in February 2020, Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Cushner to fill the remainder of the current term, pre-empting any election until this year.
If a third candidate qualifies, a June 21 runoff would be possible. Otherwise, the race would be decided in May because nonpartisan offices do not continue onto the November ballot. If Classens wins, he will have to give up his independent legal practice, now called Classens Law, since full-time State Court judges are not allowed to continue as private attorneys while serving.
"It has occurred to me that Bulloch County and the people here in Bulloch County have been the reason why I've been able to have a successful career for 37 years, and although I still love what I do, it feels appropriate to seek this position in an effort to give something back to those people on a broader scale," Classens said last week. "I feel like this is an appropriate way to bring my professional career to a nice conclusion."
Wide experience
As an attorney, he has handled a variety of criminal defense cases, including murder trials, personal injury litigation with verdicts and settlements adding up to many millions of dollars, commercial litigation and domestic matters involving divorce, custody, support and property division. He notes that he has worked in municipal, probate, state and superior courtrooms in more than 35 Georgia counties and represented clients in federal cases in Statesboro, Savannah, Dublin, Augusta and Albany.
Classens has been admitted to the bars of the United States Supreme Court, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the federal district courts for the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Georgia, as well as the Georgia Supreme Court and Georgia Court of Appeals.
"There literally is not a courtroom in the state of Georgia that I'm not authorized to practice in," he said.
Chose to stay
Classens grew up in Statesboro and graduated from Statesboro High School in 1973 as a Bulloch County STAR student. In 1978 he attained a bachelor's degree in psychology from Georgia Southern College, now University. Meanwhile, he supported his college attendance by working at Smith Supply Company from one week after high school graduation until he left for law school in August 1981.
Classens attained his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville in 1984 and passed the Georgia bar exam in February 1985. He then took a summer job with the firm of Allen, Brown and Edenfield in Statesboro while planning to move to Atlanta for a job that fall, until Judge Francis Allen that August offered him a continuing role as an associate attorney with the firm.
"Preferring Bulloch County to Fulton County as a location at which to build and rear a family, I readily accepted, making a decision I have never regretted," Classens said.
His two daughters, Jessica and Carolina, were born and educated here, and now he has two granddaughters, Michael Lillian and Willow Louise.
Classens first had a solo practice in Statesboro 1989–93, when he also served until 1991 as an Ogeechee Judicial Circuit public defender. He was a partner with Allen & Classens 1993–96 and in Edenfield, Cox, Bruce, & Classens from 1996 to 2017. He is now in his fifth year back in solo practice.
He previously also served as an assistant professor of criminal justice at Georgia Southern, teaching courses about evidence. But being a judge would be a new role for him. He said his health is good and he would like to get elected, win re-election and serve about 10 years total, as a capstone of his career.
"As a court of general civil and misdemeanor criminal jurisdiction, the Bulloch State Court plays a central role in the lives of our citizens. … ," Classens said in a statement first provided in 2020. "Compassion and understanding are essential tools for any judge, and I will do my best to bring those to this job, along with my own experience and education."
Candidate qualifying for the May 24 nonpartisan general election and party primaries continues until noon Friday.