Two of the longest-serving judges on the Cobb County Superior Court are planning to retire at the end of the year, leaving their seats open for the 2020 elections.

Judges S. Lark Ingram, 66, and J. Stephen Schuster, 68, have both announced in recent days that they will not seek reelection. Their current terms expire Dec. 31.

Both told the Daily Report Wednesday that they timed their news to allow candidates time to decide, organize and qualify to run for their seats. The Georgia secretary of state's calendar shows notice of candidacy filing for the nonpartisan elections starting at 9 a.m. on March 2 and ending at noon on March 6. Candidates have already announced plans to run for their seats, and more may emerge by the deadline.

Nonpartisan judicial elections will be held across the state on May 19, the same day as the general primary. If runoff elections are required, they will be held July 21. The new judges will take office Jan. 1, 2020.

Ingram and Schuster both said they intend to ask Gov. Brian Kemp for senior status, allowing them to fill in for active superior court judges in Cobb and other circuits.

"It's not a total walk away, but it won't be as intense in the courtroom," Ingram said.

Her decision to retire follows the death last November of her father, Senior Judge G. Conley Ingram, a former Georgia Supreme Court justice. She said she wants to have more time for her family, from her mother to her four grandchildren.

"It has been an honor to serve with my colleagues on the Superior Court bench," she said in a letter to the Cobb County Bar Association, calling it "a memory of a lifetime to serve with my father … when he was a senior Superior Court judge."

Lark Ingram earned her J.D. at the University of Georgia School of Law in 1978. She served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal and civil divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice in the Northern District of Georgia. She first went on the bench in 1991 for the Cobb County State Court, which handles misdemeanors and civil cases. After four years there, she was appointed to Cobb Superior Court. She has won the job without opposition in every election since 1996.

Cobb Magistrate Court Judge Kellie Hill has announced she will run for Ingram's seat. Hill had been planning to run for state court but switched to superior court after learning of Ingram's plans.

"The Cobb Superior Court is losing a great deal of knowledge and experience with the retirement of these two judges," Hill told the Daily Report Thursday in an email. "I currently assist the two of them, along with the remaining Superior Court judges, as an assisting Superior Court judge and would be honored to bring my 25 years of legal and four additional years of judicial experience to the court full time."

Another candidate is also switching from a campaign for state court in Cobb to superior court to run for the other open seat. Cobb County Senior District Attorney Jason Marbutt said Tuesday he will seek Schuster's seat on the Cobb County Superior Court, rather than run as he had previously planned for Cobb State Court, Post 6.

"In light of Judge Schuster's decision to retire, and with the encouragement from my peers in the legal community and friends and family throughout Cobb County, I am announcing my intention to run for Superior Court Judge," Marbutt said in an email. "As a career prosecutor and chairman of the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force, I believe my experience in protecting our most vulnerable citizens, our mothers and fathers, and our grandmothers and grandfathers, is best suited for the Superior Court bench."

Like Ingram, Schuster earned his J.D. from UGA Law. He was two years ahead of her, graduating in 1976. Schuster began his career as a prosecutor in both the state and superior courts of Cobb County. Following that, he practiced law for more than 20 years in a Marietta firm that bore his name, focusing on business, family law and litigation matters. Then he was appointed by the superior court to serve as a Cobb County Juvenile Court judge. In 2004, he was elected to the superior court, where he has served since Jan. 1, 2005.

Schuster said Wednesday he welcomes the coming campaign season—without him.

"The Cobb bar has an incredible depth of talent, and it's time for the next generation to take over," Schuster told the Daily Report. "I'm happy to be retiring now ,when people aren't saying, 'He should have left years ago.' Or if they're saying it, they aren't saying it very loudly."