Becca Crumrine Rieder (Courtesy photo)

Gov. Nathan Deal on Friday named four new Georgia judges to the bench, appointing replacements for retiring superior court judges in the Atlanta, Flint and Piedmont judicial circuits, and a new Dougherty County State Court judge to fill a vacancy left when he named a judge there to the superior court bench.

Deal tapped family law specialist Rebecca Crumrine Rieder, currently a partner with Hedgepeth, Heredia & Rieder, to replace retiring Fulton County Superior Court Judge Doris “Dee” Downs.

Rieder earned her law degree at the University of Georgia, and joined the State Bar of Georgia in 2001.

“I am absolutely thrilled to be selected,” said Rieder, whose name has appeared twice before on short lists of judicial candidates sent to the governor.

Rieder, 49, went to high school in Augusta and earned an undergraduate degree at the University of the South in Tennessee before attending the University of Georgia for a master's degree in education.

“I taught middle school and high school at Davidson Fine Arts Academy in Augusta for five years, then I went back to the University of Georgia for law school,” she said.

After earning her law degree, Rieder put in a “brief stint” doing insurance defense work at Carter & Ansley before moving as an associate at what was then Warner, Mayoue & Bates, and continued in family law at Davis, Matthews & Quigley before joining Hedgepeth, Heredia & Rieder.

She is a former chair of the bar's Family Law Section and is an adjunct professor at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School. She also has served as an arbitrator for the State Bar of Georgia and in private capacities, she said.

Although she spent much of her career specializing in family law, Rieder said she looks forward to the array of legal issues she will face as a superior court judge.

“I am happy to serve however my colleagues want me to serve, and I would be happy to serve in the Family Division,” she said.

In the Flint Circuit, Deal named Veal Law Firm principal Holly Veal to fill the vacancy created by retiring Henry County Superior Court Judge Arch McGarity.

Veal, currently an associate Henry County magistrate judge, earned her undergraduate and master's degrees from Georgia State University and her law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

According to her firm's website, Veal specializes in criminal defense and family law. After joining the State Bar of Georgia in 2004, she served as public defender in in Albany, Georgia, then moved on to be a prosecutor in Clayton, Houston and Henry counties.