Jackson Free Press

Bridgett Clayton came to the practice of law relatively late, but she has built a varied career in a brief amount of time. The Meridian native studied political science at the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1982. She then worked for the city of Meridian and Lauderdale County as a grants administrator before heading to law school at Mississippi College in 1991. She received her law degree in 1994 and worked as an associate for Jackson attorney Bob Owens until 1998, when she started a private practice. From 1998 to 2000, she was an assistant county prosecutor for Hinds County, handling youth and criminal cases in county court.

In 2008, she became a municipal-court judge for Jackson. It's a part-time position, and Clayton has continued her private practice, including serving as corporate counsel for Hinds County's human resources agency.

Clayton, 50, lives in northeast Jackson with her husband, Johnny, a respiratory therapist. The couple, who have two children, facilitate pre-marital and couples counseling for New Hope Baptist Church.

What lessons have you learned from the municipal-court job that you could apply to county court?
We are all required to—and this is what I plan to do—to serve the high level of dedication to the rule of law as well as the judicial code of conduct. ... Those are mandates, whether you're part time or full time, so I feel that I'm getting acclimated into conducting myself, in my person, as a judge, or groom myself to serve in a full-time basis with those same on-the-line mandates on the code of judicial conduct.

What parts of the judicial system in Hinds County are working well?
I think judges are probably handling, more than likely, the caseloads as best they can. Hinds County is a more highly populated county than some of your other counties, so I think they do a very professional job in that arena. However, I think that with more energy and ingenuity, I plan to serve at a higher level of efficiency. We can always improve, of course. And in doing so, I would have regular docket calls. I know some of the judges might already do that, so it's not any discredit to them. But I think we can probably have regular docket calls to clear the docket.

What does that mean?
When we file pleadings as attorneys, we're responsible for having that motion or petition being heard in as expeditious a manner as possible. So what I would do is try ... to move those matters off the docket. You've probably heard about crowding of the docket. That's not to blame anyone (for) why the dockets are real full: We're a big, populated county. But we can probably do, on the judicial realm, a more efficient job in making sure, by calling dockets ... which cases have just sat there, gotten stale. We'll call the docket and set a date and time for attorneys to be there to answer the call of the docket. ... That way we can enter some orders of dismissal if no one comes and answers to the docket, where appropriate. We can't just dismiss them, but we can call the docket and get the disposition and see what is going on with them. And some of them could probably be dismissed by order, by having a regular docket call.

What are the most important qualities in a judge?
We're human, but we are to take a strong approach to abiding by the Code of Judicial Conduct and the five prongs that are mandated. ... We should bring a strong leadership within the community—people can just see that we're serving as leaders and have leadership attributes. We need to become involved ... (more) in the schools so that we can help bring about a strong connection between the judicial system and the students.

What kind of connections could you see happening between Youth Court and students?
We could become involved in schools by actually being available and visible, where they can see us and go out and have forums with the students in the areas where we have a high crime level. It's not in every area, but in some areas we probably have pockets of youth that have grown into criminal acts and, of course, they migrate into adults and then end up in incarceration.

Do you have anything else to add?
We need to bring trustworthiness and integrity to the bench. With the climate that we've had in the judiciary, we've (attracted media attention) of course. And it's a mandate of us when we become attorneys to exemplify trustworthiness and integrity. After all, if we can't trust the judiciary, whom can we trust? If we cannot look and find integrity in the judiciary, where can we find it?

Could you elaborate on that at all?
I've mentioned that we've been in the media, and that's what I want to end on and not comment specifically on it.