Midwest City appoints new judges
Lorenzo Banks and Joanne Horn were appointed to serve as judges on the Midwest City Municipal Court. The council approved their appointments on Aug. 27. Photo by Jeff Harrison
By Jeff Harrison
Midwest City Beacon
Midwest City will have two new municipal judges.
The city council last week approved appointing Lorenzo Banks and Joanne Horn to the municipal court. Horn will be the first female judge to serve on the municipal bench.
Banks and Horn will replace former judges Adam Bush and Gary Bachman who both announced their resignations in June. Bush resigned after taking a new job, and Bachman retired.
Municipal judges are nominated by the mayor and approved by the city council.
Mayor Matt Dukes recommended Banks and Horn for the positions. He asked the outgoing judges for recommendations and asked the city council for feedback.
Councilwoman Sara Bana asked if the city could solicit more feedback on the process.
The council unanimously approved both appointments at the Aug. 27 meeting.
Banks is a partner at Banks, Gillett, Gillett, PLLC in Oklahoma City and serves as an adjunct professor and the assistant director of admissions and director of diversity initiatives for Oklahoma City University School of Law.
A future in law was not part of the plan. Banks went to UCO with plans of a career in mathematics education. He earned a bachelor’s degree and while pursuing his graduate studies, Banks said his life changed dramatically when he was a defendant in a frivolous lawsuit. At the time, he had no means of hiring an attorney and instead represented himself. He got the plaintiff to dismiss the lawsuit.
That experience led him to OCU Law in 2008. He graduated, passed the bar and founded Minority Report Law PLLC, where he helped those “who can’t fight for themselves.”
In 2016, MRL merged with the law firm known today as Banks, Gillett, Gillett, PLLC. Banks is a partner with the firm which carries on the MRL vision.
He is an active member of the Oklahoma Bar Association, a former board member of the Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the Oklahoma County Bar Association, and the Oklahoma City Association of Black Lawyers.
He volunteers his time and services through several different programs where he gives free advice and services to veterans, the black community, and other various groups in Oklahoma City. He also serves as the lead attorney for the Urban League of Greater Oklahoma City’s Expungement Expo—a program created to provide free expungements of certain criminal records for program participants.
Additionally, he takes questions submitted to him from the public and posts free video responses to those questions on his social media handles.
Aside from being known as one of the better trial lawyers in Oklahoma, his claim to fame is his Know Your Rights Presentation. For almost a decade, Lorenzo has traveled the country giving this presentation for colleges, family reunions, churches, and many other different types of groups to discuss the dos and don’ts of civilian and police officer interactions.
Dukes expressed gratitude to Banks for serving on the municipal court.
“I want to thank you for agreeing to serve our city,” Dukes said about Banks. “I will tell you that we had to have a conversation, and I had to do some convincing that Midwest City was the place for him to be.”
Horn is a Midwest City native, and her family moved to the city in 1947. She went to Midwest City High School, Rose State College and the University of Oklahoma, where she studied in the areas of Business Administration (Accounting), Public Health (Health Promotion Sciences), and Law.
The OU College of Law faculty, students, and staff voted Ms. Horn to be the recipient of the “Professional Responsibility and Leadership Award” at graduation.
She and her husband Roger raised Jacob, their only child in Midwest City. He is now a Professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut.
Horn practiced law with the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS) until retirement. She served as an administrative hearing officer in more than 3,000 cases, represented DPS in county courts across the state and on appeal, and served as Interim Deputy General Counsel of the DPS Legal Division. She now practices law at the Harmony Law Office in Midwest City.
When Horn returned to Midwest City in 1986, she also returned to her family church, St. Philip Neri, where she now serves as lector, catechist, and Stephen Minister.
For her years of volunteer work with the third Saturday Legal Clinic of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma County Bar Association presented Horn with the “Pro Bono Award” on July 14, at their annual Awards Luncheon.
Dukes said Horn is a well-qualified candidate who has lived and worked in Midwest City for several years.
City leaders have not yet determined which type of dockets the new judges will handle.
