Term Ends: 2026
Party: R
Marla is a career-long, Lafourche Parish attorney, and a district judge for the 17th Judicial District Court. The 17th Judicial District Court serves all of Lafourche Parish, and the election is Parish-wide. Her career has focused on representing local clients, including private businesses, governmental entities, individuals, and children in the foster-care system.
She graduated with honors from Georgia Southern University and Mississippi College School of Law. During law school, she was on the moot court board and completed an externship with the Staff Attorney’s Office for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Then, she moved to Louisiana to continue her legal education at Tulane Law School, where she studied Louisiana’s unique civil-law system.
Previously, she was a law clerk for the 17th Judicial District for Lafourche Parish, where she assisted in researching and writing on a broad range of legal issues, including criminal, domestic, juvenile, and civil cases.
Currently, she is the 17th Judicial District Court’s representative to the Louisiana Bar Association’s House of Delegates, a Louisiana Bar Foundation fellow, a member of the Louisiana Bar Foundation’s Bayou Region Community Partnership Panel, and serve on the Southeast Louisiana Legal Service’s 50 More Years Campaign Committee. She participates in the Louisiana Center for Law and Civic Education’s “Lawyers in the Classroom” program. She is a member of the Thibodaux Service League and the Mother Teresa Women’s Giving Circle.