Election 2023: Meet the candidates for Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas judge seat

One Court of Common Pleas judge seat is open in Lebanon County after the retirement of Judge Samuel A. Kline and will be decided during the Nov. 7 election.

Court of Common Pleas judges serve 10-year terms. Here's a look at the candidates:

Donna Long Brightbill

Republican candidate for the judge seat Donna Long Brightbill has practiced law for 34 years.

Brightbill was raised in Campbelltown and graduated from Palmyra Area High School. Then she worked her way through her undergraduate education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania before she attended Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh.

After graduating, she spent three years working for McNees Wallace & Nurick, a regional law firm based in Harrisburg.

She decided to come back to Lebanon and joined as partner for a law firm now called Long Brightbill, where she's worked for the last 31 years.

"I wanted to be a little closer to home and do the type of work that I'm doing now," Brightbill said of why she chose to return to Lebanon.

While the firm does a wide variety of work, Brightbill concentrates her practice on family, divorce, support, adoption and custody law.

She has been the Lebanon City solicitor for 14 years and represented zoning hearing boards for Bethel Township and North Cornwall, as well as the Lebanon County Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

"The one thing with my practice is I have long-standing clients that I've had for years. Often times I would have represented someone 25 years ago, and I maybe did their divorce, and then their estate planning and now their kids are back for a will."

Starting in 1991, Brightbill spent 7.5 years working as a part-time assistant district attorney under now Judge Bradford Charles, who was district attorney at the time.

"During that time frame, I handled all aspects, from preliminary hearings, to sentencing, to criminal miscellaneous and trying jury trials."

Brightbill, who unsuccessfully ran for a county judge seat about 25 years ago, said that she decided to run for this seat because she believes she has something to add to the court, which she attributes to her upbringing. She came from a family where neither of her parents graduated high school, worked since she was 13 and paid her way through college, then saw success in her law practice. She hopes to continue the work that the Lebanon County courts have been doing for many years.

"I think who I am, the type of temperament I have, and what I've learned through my years is important," she said. "Besides that, just the type of work I have done, and what I can add to the court."

She believes that she's the most qualified for the position because of the years of experience she has as well as her background with the two most common cases a county judge would see, criminal and civil court cases, from her experience working in the DA's office and private practice.

"We're running to be a judge, and that's where I have been, really, day in and day out for decades, doing those exact types of cases. So that's why I say I'm the most qualified."

Megan Ryland Tanner

Appearing on the Democrat ballot, registered Republican Megan Ryland Tanner appeared on both the Democratic and Republican ballot during the primary election.

Tanner received her undergraduate degree in public policy from Penn State Harrisburg and her law degree from Widener.

She was born and raised in Lebanon County and graduated from Cedar Crest High School.

After graduating from Penn State Harrisburg, Tanner took a year off of school to work as a prosecutorial advocate in Lebanon County, working with victims of domestic and sexual violence to help them through the criminal justice system and work with law enforcement. She said that job caused her job to pursue a law degree.

After graduating law school, she began working for Palmyra law firm Brandt & Gerber, handling all kinds of cases. In private practice, she would later become a partner of that firm. She later joined Reilly Wolfson, which merged with Barley Snyder in April of this year, where she continues to practice today.

In 2003, Tanner became a court appointed custody conciliator for the county. She meets with people and attempts to resolve the dispute without a judge.

"I've been trained in both the facilitative and the transformative models of mediation," she said.

She stopped her work as a custody conciliator earlier in January in order to run for office.

She began working as a part-time Lebanon County assistant district attorney in 2005, where she, due to the size of the office, worked on everything from retail thefts and burglaries to homicides and child abuse cases

A couple of years after she became an assistant district attorney, she left private practice to better focus on her duties in the district attorney's office and custody work.

She left the district attorney's office in 2021 to return to private practice.

In private practice, she has worked on family law, wills and estates, civil litigation, municipal zoning, as well as sales and business and real estate closings.

Tanner decided to run for judge because she thought that would be a natural progression from her time working in the District Attorney's office and as a custody conciliator

"I had thought that was going to be where I stayed, where I retired from. Doing the DA work and the custody. I loved doing those two areas of law. I was very passionate about those areas. At some point, I got to the point where I thought to myself, you know what? It would be a natural transition to move from these roles into the role of a Court of Common Pleas judge."

Tanner believes that her background in both criminal and custody law, as well as experience in civil law, make her the most qualified candidate.

She also believes that her time working as a custody conciliator, what she describes as a quasi-judicial role, has aptly prepared her with the skills she would need to have as a judge.

"I have the very strong belief that judges need to have trial experience for them to really be a great judge," she said.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on X @djlarlham.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Meet the candidates running for Lebanon County Pa. open judge seat