“A running theme of my journey is that life unfolds in unexpected ways,” writes Rich Leonard in his new autobiography, “From Welcome to Windhoek: A Judge’s Journey.”
In 1994, Leonard was a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina when he received a peculiar call from the U.S. State Department. They were looking for a judge with administrative experience to go to Zambia to help create a new court structure. Leonard was a wunderkind of crafting court administration systems. At age 29, he was named clerk of court for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He was the youngest person to ever hold that position.
Leonard excitedly told the State Department he would pack his bags for Zambia. “You go around once, and when people offer you adventures, you don’t turn them down lightly.”
It was the start of a love affair that would change his life. A life that began growing up in rural Welcome, North Carolina, that would crisscross Africa, including the Namibian capital of Windhoek.
Leonard arrived in Lusaka to find, “There were just hundreds of cases that were languishing. They were sitting there until, I guess, some lawyer showed up and complained, they were never going to get put on the track.
“It was not as if Africa had no laws before the colonial powers arrived. In fact, each clan or ethnic group has its own sophisticated set of rules for marriage, inheritance, and property ownership, among other issues. Cases are decided by the chief of village elders, reconciliation is the goal.”
Leonard embraced the culture, and the people embraced him. A dedicated runner, he was something of an oddity when he took a trot on his first day in Lusaka. “Most Africans who walk everywhere find the Western habit of running for pleasure amusing. A group of 10 to 15 children would be waiting for me every afternoon outside the hotel. We ran together and what fun those miles were,” he writes.
With a wry and self-deprecating sense of humor, Leonard peppers the book with “fish-out-of-water” stories. Like the time in Dar Es Salam when he invited Tanzanian judges and court administrators to dinner and was tasked with cooking the frozen haunch of an impala. “Being from North Carolina, I had at least a vague notion of how to prepare the impala. I spent the morning defrosting it in hot water, then cut it into cubes, marinated it in a tangy homemade BBQ sauce, and made kebabs to grill, served over herbed rice; it was delicious.”
Despite his zeal for organization and structure, Leonard has a leap-before-you-look attitude toward life. “I’m not risk averse. Never have been,” he explained. While in Africa, he climbed into small planes of questionable reliability, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro… twice… bungee jumped, dodged crocodiles, and danced with a 15-foot boa constrictor.
When Leonard was tapped to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 1991, he writes, “I didn’t know much about bankruptcy law. Every day was an intense seminar. I was a stranger to the bankruptcy bar and staff and seen as a bit of an impostor.” Many of the cases before him involved farmers. “Lawyers who appeared in my court were surprised to find I was not a city slicker they expected, but I had actually primed tobacco, cut silage and baled hay.”
In 1995, Leonard was nominated by the Clinton administration to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. However, the nomination got bogged down in partisan politics and was blocked by then-Sen. Jesse Helms. When Leonard had a chance to be renominated, he demurred. “Twisting in the wind was too much of a diversion from my otherwise rich life. I wanted no more of it. I underestimated how brutal North Carolina judicial politics had become and remain today,” he writes.
During his many trips to Africa, Leonard discovered that Southerners and Africans have much in common. “In Africa, family and clan are everything. Identity is defined by your people and comes with a host of responsibilities and obligations to those of your blood. This was how I was raised… maybe that is why I always felt at home there in Africa.”
Rich Leonard has been dean of the Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law since July 2013.
His memoir, “From Welcome to Windhoek: A Judge’s Journey” is available at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh or online via Amazon or Audible.
