Sheppard Tells Women’s Conference Of Her Odyssey to a Judgeship

OCEAN CITY – It may be possible to have it all, Superior Court Judge Susan Sheppard told a large crowd at the 2018 Women in Business Conference at the Flanders Hotel March 1, but it may not be possible to have it all at once. 
In a wide-ranging, personal, and often humorous keynote address to the annual conference, the judge spoke about her family, her career, and the choices that led her to the bench.
Sheppard moved quickly through the ranks of local politics, from her first campaign for Ocean City Council to the Cape May County Board Chosen of Freeholders, then to her election as the county’s first female Surrogate before being tapped for the bench, all within a decade.
“I hadn’t completed a term in any of these,” she said.
Sheppard’s lunchtime address came at the close of the conference, which had included panel discussions on Atlantic Cape Community College, cyber security, brand building, and exceptional women in education.
That panel included three Ocean City women:
* Superintendent Kathleen Taylor, of Ocean City School District and New Jersey’s superintendent of the year.
* Amy Andersen, the state’s teacher of the year and a finalist for the national teacher of the year.
* Ocean City High School student Nora Faverzani, the student representative to the New Jersey Board of Education.
This final panelist was of particular interest to Sheppard. It’s her daughter.
At one point, Faverzani teased her mother from the podium for crying during the presentation.
Later, during her remarks, Sheppard said she was already trying to lose a reputation for crying from the bench in Family Court, as she worked on heart-wrenching cases.
At times, she told the conference, the issues raised remind her of her own family history, which included substance abuse and divorce.
She made three points, presented with candid examples from her life.
The first was that one’s life does not have to be determined by their background. She said after her parents divorced, her mother went back to school as a single mom with three young children. She said her mother emphasized education, particularly for women.
“She taught us that education was the key to existence. The only way to get yourself out of the hole that you may be in is to get yourself educated,” she said. “And she said women should be educated first and foremost. And if you’re educated, then nobody can dictate what you’re going to do. Nobody. Then you dictate your own existence.”
She cited her father as a further example, who overcame substance abuse to become a Philadelphia judge. He had been sober for 35 years when he died.
Sheppard said she initially studied finance and hated it. She then went to law school, working as a waitress at the shore to pay her way.
After graduation, she started in a big law firm in Philadelphia.
“It was a different world,” Sheppard recalled. “The generation right before me was the first women to go into the large law firms. And they really had it tough.”
She recalled watching a conference discussion at which women said they faced a choice between having a family or making partner. She said she was stunned. She thought no one should face a choice between her career and having a family.
“The reality is that you do have to make some choices,” she said. Sheppard recounted having a few drinks with Sen. Diane Allen, a Republican state senator who represented the 7th District for 20 years, at which she raised the question.
“You know, I think you can have it all, but you may not be able to have it all at the same time,” Sheppard said Allen told her.
As Sheppard started her family, she left a six-figure salary at a high-profile firm for a job at a smaller firm; she told those at the business conference, which meant she got paid based on the money she brought in.
Men found clients on the golf course and elsewhere, she said. She had to find another path, which included joining civic organizations to build contacts. Asking for jobs in that circumstance helped her later when she became involved in politics.
That led her to her second point: don’t be afraid.
She decided to move to Ocean City.
“I was living on Rittenhouse Square. I thought I was all that and a bag of chips,” she said.
As her family grew, she cut back on her responsibilities, deciding to stay home with her three children. She joined a mothers’ group, which happened to work out well for her later political career.
She felt guilty about both working and not working; she told those gathered at The Flanders, stating that there is no right or wrong choice.
“There is no right or wrong answer, whether you have to stay home or whether you decide to go to work, as long as we give each other the choice. That’s the key to this; you have to have the choice,” she said, describing it as the second point she wanted to make.
Sheppard got involved in Ocean City politics when she was asked to run a mayoral campaign in 2006.
She was asked to run for City Council in 2008, and before that term was up, Freeholder Gerald Thornton asked her to join his ticket as he challenged the county Republican organization in a primary to keep his seat.
“I didn’t really understand what a freeholder did. I’m still not quite sure, exactly,” she said, to a laugh. “We ran off the line in a contested election to open up the party, and I hope we did.”
She next ran for Surrogate, after W. Robert Hentges decided to retire after more than 40 years in the job. She won that seat.
“I almost actually completed a term,” she said when U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd) and Gov. Chris Christie contacted her about becoming a judge.
On the bench, her experience as a child plays into her judgment. She said she is very happy and content with where her life has led.
“I think being a good judge, and I don’t know yet, I’m trying to figure that out, but I think it takes a lot of common sense as much as a love of the law,” she said.
Before the address, Cape May County Chamber of Commerce President Vicki Clark was honored by the Women of Wonder organization.
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.