The Honorable H. David Clark, II. is set to retire after serving as the Judge in the Chancery Court of the Second Court District for the State of Mississippi for over 29 years. Judge Clark was elected to his judgeship in the Spring of 1989 in a special election and has enjoyed serving the people of the Second Court District and with the attorneys and clerks of Jasper County, Scott County and Newton County.
The three bar associations of the Chancery Court of the Second Court District, made up of Scott, Jasper and Newton counties will hold a retirement reception at the Scott County Courthouse on Thursday, December 6, at 1:00 p.m.
Judge Clark said it has been an honor to work with the attorneys and clerks in his district in serving the people of Mississippi for almost three decades. “We have great attorneys and clerks in this district,” Clark said, “The people I worked with made my job enjoyable every day, we have the best clerks in the state.”
The Chancery Court handles among other legal issues divorces and adoptions and Clark said that adoptions were his favorite cases to rule over. “During adoption cases there are happy moments for everyone unlike the divorce cases and in the adoptions everybody involved wins,” Clark said. “I really enjoyed hearing the success stories from those cases and the time I got to spend visiting with the children.”
Judge Clark graduated from law school in 1978 with the first class at Mississippi College School of Law and practiced law in the local area until he was elected to the bench in 1989. “There have been a lot of changes since I was first elected 29 years ago,” Clark said. “When I first started the procedure book was maybe 12 pages, but I just got the new court rule book and it’s as thick as my hand.”
Even though there have been changes in the laws and procedures over the last thirty years Judge Clark has been the constant during those three decades. Attorneys throughout the district have said on numerous occasions that they work with the best judge in Mississippi, but after almost thirty years Judge Clark says it his time to step away from the bench and he will do so on December 6.
