ESRW November 11, 2021 Meeting

Sarah Hicks Stewart, a long-time resident of Mobile, was elected in November 2018 to serve as an Associate Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. She is the daughter of Reginald and Suzanne Hicks. Her only brother, Charlie Hicks, was an attorney in Mobile until his untimely death in 2014. Justice Stewart and her family lived all over the world for the majority of her childhood while her father worked as a petroleum geologist.

In 1981, Justice Stewart graduated from Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma; she earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Communication at the University of Arkansas in 1985 and 1986. While in college, she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, Mortar Board, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Order of Omega and served as president of the Student Government Association her senior year. In 1992, Justice Stewart earned her J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School where she was vice president of the Law Student Association.

After graduating from Vanderbilt, Justice Stewart practiced law with Hand Arendall LLC, Ezell & Sharbrough LLC, and finally with her brother, Charlie. As a lawyer, Justice Stewart was the first female president of the Mobile Young Lawyers and served on many local and state bar committees. Justice Stewart was appointed a circuit judge in the 13th Judicial Circuit by Governor Riley in 2006 and ran for the position three times unopposed. As a circuit judge, Justice Stewart handled thousands of civil and criminal cases, ranging from simple car wrecks to multi-million dollar business disputes and from possession of marijuana to capital murder. During her 13 years as a circuit judge, Justice Stewart served as the co-chair on Professionalism in the Bench and Bar, on the Supreme Court’s standing committee on the Alabama Rules of Evidence, and on many other Alabama State Bar and judicial committees. Justice Stewart was active in the leadership of the Circuit Judges Association, serving as Education Chair for eight years and was elected by her fellow judges in July 2018 as the first female president of the Circuit Judges Association.