Atlanta, July 24, 2025 – The Honorable Benjamin A. Land was officially sworn in today to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
Gov. Brian Kemp appointed the former Georgia Court of Appeals judge to the state’s highest court to fill the seat vacated by former Chief Justice Michael P. Boggs, who left the bench at the end of March to return to private practice. The governor administered the oath of office in the North Wing of the State Capitol Building.
Justice Land’s brother, U.S. District Court Judge Clay D. Land of the Middle District of Georgia, introduced him, stating that Justice Land’s “keen and curious intellect,” his strong work ethic, and his understanding of “people of all circumstances and backgrounds” are assets that make him an “exceptional judge.”
“In our system, judges have a unique and essential—but limited—role to interpret the law and not to create the law, to try and discover what those who wrote the law meant when they wrote it, and to apply that meaning to present-day circumstances. Ben gets that,” Judge Clay Land said. “Finally, once arriving at the meaning of the law, an exceptional judge must have the courage to say what that law is, even if that judge personally disagrees with the outcome and even if it causes the judge personal and—yes, in the case of elected judges—political discomfort. Judicial independence is paramount in any representative democracy. … Ben has demonstrated that he understands the proper role of a judge and has the courage to make decisions consistent with that understanding. In short, he knows what is meant by the rule of law, he appreciates the importance of it, and he possesses the conviction to play his role in maintaining it.”
Justice Land was appointed by Gov. Kemp to serve on the Court of Appeals in July 2022 and was reelected statewide in 2024. He also has served as a judge of the Superior Court for the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit, having been appointed by then-Gov. Nathan Deal in 2018.
While a trial judge, Justice Land served on the Council of Superior Court Judges Budget Committee and Pattern Jury Instructions Committee. During his time at the Court of Appeals, he chaired the Rules Committee and served on the Legislative Committee.
Justice Land is a Double Dawg. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia, graduating summa cum laude from the UGA School of Law in 1992 and finishing second in his class of 202 students. Following law school, Justice Land ran his own private law firm, focused on civil litigation and trial practice.
During his remarks today, Justice Land noted that 35 years ago he interned at the Supreme Court of Georgia under Justice George T. Smith. On his first day, he got lost in downtown Atlanta but still managed to make it to the court on time.
Today, he pledged to the citizens of Georgia, as well as to his fellow Justices, to be on time for oral arguments and other court functions but also to “work as hard as I can to reach the right result in every case for the right reason, without fear, without favor, or without affection.”
He also quoted former Court of Appeals judge and civil rights lawyer Herbert Phipps: “You have to have the courage to do the right thing when the whole world is watching. And you have to have the integrity to do the right thing when no one is watching. I can think of no better motto for any judge, and I can think of no better words to describe my approach to this job.”