MOULTRIE — Georgia Court of Appeals candidate Lee Wallace of Marietta chose Moultrie as part of her campaign tour through South Georgia.

Her mother, Terry Tarte, accompanied Wallace despite a recent knee surgery. She trailed after her daughter with determined dedication.

“That’s a mama for you,” the candidate said, smiling back at her mom as she crossed a downtown street for a photo as Mrs. Tarte found a seat in the shade.

Wallace, 42, is originally from Alabama but grew up in Atlanta. She went on to excel academically in Vanderbilt University and Harvard Law School and is now is one of the top 10 product liability lawyers in the state.

“I’ve always wanted to be a judge since law school. To me, that’s the absolute highest and best use you could ever make of a law degree. I can’t imagine a job that could be more important for a lawyer,” Wallace said.

“Quite frankly what you want is somebody who’s a bit of an egghead. And that’s why it matters I was first in my class at Vanderbilt and an honors grad at Harvard. For some jobs that might not matter, but for this job that’s a really good thing. That’s what you want, somebody who thinks it’s fun to read case law and all these briefs,” she said.

Wallace is running against Marietta attorney Debra Bernes, 48; attorney William Ashley Hawkins, 58, of Forsyth; attorney Howard Mead, 43, of Atlanta; Juvenile Court Judge Thomas C. Rawlings, 36, of Sandersville; and attorney Mike Sheffield, 54, of Lawrenceville, for a seat on the 12-member appellate court. The victor at Tuesday’s election will replace retiring Judge Frank Eldridge.

Clerking in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Wallace has written well over 100 opinions.

Most people would think this is the most boring job in the state, she said. Their idea of courtroom activity comes from Perry Mason and Law and Order.

“Court of Appeals is nothing remotely like that. You sit in your office all day long and read briefs and read cases and that’s all you do. The highlight is once a month when lawyers come in (and) talk about their case for 15 minutes,” she said.

The Court of Appeals handles 3,400 cases. In the last 100 years, only two incumbent judges have been unseated from the bench. The bottom line is that the person elected Tuesday would probably be there for decades, Wallace said.

“So basically, if a mistake gets made or if a good choice gets made, it gets multiplied out 20 to 30 years,” she said, adding laws should be made in the statehouse and not in the courthouse.

Wallace is fascinated by the chance at interpreting established law to the burgeoning area of technology and computers.

“In law you just don’t get very many new frontiers. Pretty much, things are established. A tort is a tort. Assault has been a crime for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, but here you have a chance at something brand new to figure out how all the old laws apply to it,” she said.

“Everybody stores all their data on computers. What do you do in discovery about that when you need to get the other side to turn over their documents? Do they have to keep them a certain amount of time? When they destroy them, do they then get their hard drive back?”

Take for instance libel and slander, she said. How do current statutes apply to the Internet?

“You get somebody in Georgia who is slandered by somebody in Georgia but it was put on a server in California that’s maintained in Minnesota. Who’s responsible? What are the laws?” she asked.

She’s been in practice 17 years and handled cases in 20 different states. She was named a “SuperLawyer” out of 20,000 Georgia lawyers and voted one of the top 50 female lawyers. Also, she once chaired the product liability section of the Georgia legal bar, among other distinctions.

“I have the academic background that makes me love doing the reading, the writing and research. One of the things the voters can know up front is that I’m not just going to turn it all over to law clerks, because I love doing that. I want to be involved. I want to do it too,” she said.

Wallace has been endorsed by former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell and numerous other high profile Georgia attorneys but her greatest motivation came when her 5-year-old son, Matthew, offered to crack open his piggybank to donate to her campaign.

Wallace’s eyes welled up a little with motherly pride when she described Matthew’s enthusiasm. She won’t forget, she said, his faith in her — and the faith of Georgia voters — if elected to the bench.