Background
Susan Leeson was born on August 16, 1946, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Susan Leeson
Edit ProfileEducation
The family moved to Oregon in 1961 where she attended Sunset High School near Beaverton. In 1968, Leeson graduated from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, with a bachelor of arts in political science. She graduated magna cum laude and then earned a master’s degree and Doctor of Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University.
Career
She was the 94th Associate Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment to Oregon’s high court, the Utah native served on the Oregon Court of Appeals. There she was a delegate to the Girls’ Nation conference before graduating in 1964.
Then at the age of 24 she returned to Willamette and began teaching political science.
While teaching, she enrolled at Willamette’s law school and earned her Juris Doctor in 1981. After law school she clerked for Judge Alfred T. Goodwin and was a judicial fellow for United States. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren East. Burger’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.
Then in December 1992 Susan Leeson was appointed to the Oregon Court of Appeals.
On February 26, 1998, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber appointed her to the state supreme court to replace Edward North. Fadeley. She resigned in 2003 to battle breast cancer. After beating breast cancer Leeson became a mediator and arbitrator and for several years has been listed in the “Best Lawyers in America” in the field of mediation and arbitration.
She was an adjunct professor at the University of Oregon School of Law for two years, teaching mediation skills, and was the lead principal writer for the 2009 edition of We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” for the Center for Civic Education.
She frequently presents at teacher workshops around the country focused on civics and American history. In 2009, Leeson became the staff mediator at the Oregon Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon.
Achievements
-
She then won election to a full term in 1994 before resigning on February 26, 1998. Leeson then won election to a full six-year term later in 1998. She received the Betty Roberts Award from Oregon Women Lawyers in 2003, and was named Legal Citizen of the Year in 2006. She received the Honorable James M. Burns Federal Practice Award that year. In 2012, she won the Robert F. Peckham Award for Excellence in Alternative Dispute Resolution from the Ninth Circuit, and in 2013 the Sid Lezak Award of excellence from the Alternative Dispute Resolution section of the Oregon State Bar.
-
Born
-
Nationality
United States