ELECTIONS: Rick McPherson ready to return to Panola County Court at Law - panolawatchman.com

Carthage lawyer Rick McPherson has valued professionalism and decorum since first establishing his law practice in 1976, and now he wants to bring those values to the Panola County Court at Law.

McPherson is running for judge of the court partly because he believes his experience as a lawyer and in trials can help bring Panola courts out of a pandemic slump.

“We’re making progress on the pandemic, but we have been shut down in many ways, though not totally shut down,” McPherson said. “It’s been real difficult to get much of anything done in the last two years, in many ways. I feel that as we get this back to up-and-running, we need to, in a sense, double down on our institutions.”

After several decades of experience working in Panola courts and alongside prolific local figures in law, McPherson believes he can run a tight and efficient court.

Efficiency goes a long way in the County Court at Law, McPherson said, because the court can hear cases for misdemeanors, most felonies and a majority of juvenile or family law cases.

“It really has broader jurisdiction than a district court, plus it’s here 12 months of the year,” McPherson said. “We don’t share it with anybody. It’s our court. So it’s a real important court here in our County.”

As a lawyer, McPherson has worked on cases that have gone as far as the court of appeals in New Orleans, and covered a diverse array of issues. He has experience in the County Court at Law position after a stint as judge of the court starting in 1996, trying around a hundred cases before leaving the position.

“I feel like I’m real familiar with what happens in the courtroom and at the county court and law,” McPherson said. “I think I’m really well qualified to handle all that.”

His experience with Panola County goes beyond the courts. McPherson said his family planted roots in the county after an ancestor named Stephen Lacy McPherson came here from Alabama in 1842. Some in McPherson’s immediate family, like many in Panola, worked in the oil industry, which forced them to travel from place to place for work.

McPherson returned to the area in the 70s, when a family friend asked him to practice law in Panola County. Since then, the lawyer has made connections with people in the county that he feels would endorse him for the judgeship.

“I would urge the readers, in this in every other race, to talk to their friends and neighbors about the candidates,” McPherson said. “In my case, talk to other lawyers that know me. Talk to their family lawyers and doctors or folks they know here up here at the courthouse… I feel like there’s a lot of them that will confirm what I’m saying.”

source: https://www.panolawatchman.com/news/elections-rick-mcpherson-ready-to-return-to-panola-county-court-at-law/article_1f9f5a06-8b94-11ec-9097-bfdd57c83f4a.html

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