On Dec. 31, Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram will step down from her bench after a 25-year tenure in the Cobb County Courthouse. Her retirement marks the end of two generations of judges in her family, who leave behind a long legacy that has shaped much of Cobbâs judicial history.Â
The name Ingram has been familiar around the Cobb County courthouse for decades. Her father, Conley Ingram, the former Superior Court judge and Georgia Supreme Court justice, was a beloved fixture of the Marietta legal community for decades until his death last year.Â
Raised in Marietta, Ingram grew up surrounded by the legal community of which her father was a significant part. Sheâs also first to say she was never expected to grow up and follow in her dadâs footsteps.
State Court Judge Toby Prodgers spent his childhood on the move. As the son of a âcareer military officer,â his family lived all over the United States and the world, from Virginia and Ohio to Europe and Japan. Prodgers graduated from high school in California, went to college at Duke, and served in Vietnam.
In other words, heâs been all over.
So for Prodgers, one of the great joys of his tenure in Cobb County has been the stability of its close-knit family of legal practitioners.
âThis legal community here in Cobb County has been an excellent legal community ever since I showed up in the mid â70s,â Prodgers told the MDJ. âThese people here are superb. They have a great work ethic, very professional, and itâs always been that way.â