Susan M. Leeson is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 attorney and former judge in the state of Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

. She was the 94th Associate Justice

Associate Justice

Associate Justice or Associate Judge is the title for a member of a judicial panel who is not the Chief Justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the United States Supreme Court and some state supreme courts, and for some other courts in Commonwealth...

 of the Oregon Supreme Court

Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. The OSC holds court at the Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, Oregon, near the capitol...

. Prior to her appointment to Oregon’s high court, the Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

 native served on the Oregon Court of Appeals

Oregon Court of Appeals

The Oregon Court of Appeals is the state intermediate appellate court in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the Oregon Judicial Department, it has ten judges and is located in Salem...

.

Early life

Susan Leeson was born on August 16, 1946, in Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

. The family moved to Oregon in 1961 where she attended Sunset High School

Sunset High School (Portland)

Sunset High School is a public high school in Beaverton, Oregon, United States. The school currently offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme...

 near Beaverton

Beaverton, Oregon

Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...

. There she was a delegate to the Girls’ Nation conference before graduating in 1964. In 1968, Leeson graduated from Willamette University

Willamette University

Willamette University is an American private institution of higher learning located in Salem, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest university in the Western United States. Willamette is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges, and is made up of an undergraduate College of Liberal Arts and...

 in Salem, Oregon

Salem, Oregon

Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...

, with a bachelor of arts in political science. She graduated magna cum laude and then earned a master’s degree and PhD from Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University

Claremont Graduate University is a private, all-graduate research university located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...

. Then at the age of 24 she returned to Willamette and began teaching political science. While teaching, she enrolled at Willamette’s law school

Willamette University College of Law

Willamette University College of Law is a private law school located in Salem, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1842, Willamette University is the oldest university in the Western United States...

 and earned her Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 in 1981. During law school she clerked for Judge Alfred T. Goodwin and was a judicial fellow for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger

Warren E. Burger

Warren Earl Burger was the 15th Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Although Burger had conservative leanings, the U.S...

’s office.

Leeson was on the Willamette faculty for a total of more than 20 years at both the school’s College of Liberal Arts and the law school. She helped to start the law school’s alternative dispute resolution program in 1984. She also married fellow professor Richard S. Hall, Jr.

Judicial career

Then in December 1992 Susan Leeson was appointed to the Oregon Court of Appeals. She then won election to a full term in 1994 before resigning on February 26, 1998. On February 26, 1998, Oregon Governor

Governor of Oregon

The Governor of Oregon is the top executive of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon. The title of governor was also applied to the office of Oregon's chief executive during the provisional and U.S. territorial governments....

 John Kitzhaber

John Kitzhaber

John Albert Kitzhaber is the 37th Governor of Oregon. He served as the 35th Governor of Oregon from 1995 to 2003 and became the first person to be elected to the office three times when he was re-elected to a non-consecutive third term in 2010...

 appointed her to the state supreme court to replace Edward N. Fadeley

Edward N. Fadeley

Edward Norman Fadeley is an attorney and former politician in the state of Oregon, United States. He was the 88th Associate Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Previously he served in both the Oregon House of Representatives and the Oregon State Senate, serving one session as President of the...

. Leeson then won election to a full six-year term later in 1998. She resigned in 2003 to battle breast cancer

Breast cancer

Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...

.

Later life

After beating breast cancer Susan M. Leeson started a consulting firm called Mediation Plus. She has also continued teaching and was named by the Classroom Law Project as Legal Citizen of the Year in 2006. Leeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon School of Law

University of Oregon School of Law

The University of Oregon School of Law is a public law school in the U.S. state of Oregon. Housed in the Knight Law Center, it is Oregon's only state funded law school. The school, founded in 1884, is located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, on the corner of 15th and Agate streets,...

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