Mildred Methvin

Mildred Ellen Methvin, known as Mimi Methvin (born October 1952), is an alternative dispute resolution mediator in Lafayette, Louisiana. From 1983 to 2009, she was the United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Louisiana. In 2014, she became the short-term interim judge of the Louisiana 27th Judicial District Court, Division D, in St. Landry Parish.

Background

Named for her maternal grandmother, Mildred Rosalind Hill Cunningham (1901-1982), Methvin is descended from a pioneer political family with roots in Natchitoches, Castor, and her native Alexandria, Louisiana. Her maternal great-great-grandfather, Milton Joseph Cunningham, was a member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature and for three terms prior to 1900 the Attorney General of Louisiana.Her great-grandfather, Charles Milton Cunningham, was the editor of The Natchitoches Times and a member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1915 to 1922. A great-uncle, William Tharp Cunningham, served one term in the Louisiana House of Representatives from Natchitoches Parish from 1908 to 1912, prior to becoming a judge.

Her grandfather, W. Peyton Cunningham, husband of the former Mildred Hill, was a lawyer and a member of the Louisiana House from Natchitoches Parish from 1932 to 1940.Her father, DeWitt T. Methvin, Jr., was an Alexandria lawyer prominent in both legal and civic circles. Her mother, Lallah Hill Cunningham Methvin (1929-2012), was the daughter of W. Peyton Cunningham and the first wife of DeWitt Methvin and the mother of his five children, including Mildred Methvin's four siblings. Her paternal grandmother, Myrtis Methvin, a native of Attala County in central Mississippi, was from 1933 to 1945 the mayor of Castor in Bienville Parish in northwestern Louisiana and the second woman in Louisiana history to serve as a town mayor. Her paternal grandfather, DeWitt Methvin, Sr. (1894-1975), was also a Mississippi native, a timber salesman and a member of the Bienville Parish Police Jury, the parish governing body.

Methvin was reared in Alexandria and spent her formative period as well on Cane River Lake in Natchitoches with her Cunningham family members. A Roman Catholic, Methvin graduated in 1970 from Holy Savior Menard Central High School in Alexandria. She then attended the former women's institution, H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans, before transferring for her senior year to the related Tulane University, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy. Methvin received her law degree in 1976 from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Legal career

While in law school in the District of Columbia, Methvin worked in the office of Democrat United States Representative Gillis William Long of Louisiana's 8th congressional district, disbanded in 1993. She subsequently worked from 1977 to 1979 as an associate counsel for her father's law office, Gist, Methvin, Hughes & Munsterman in Alexandria, the Gist being Howard B. Gist, Jr. From 1979 to 1981, she was an assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, based in Shreveport. In 1983, Methvin was named magistrate judge, with jurisdiction over violations of federal game law, for the United States District Court in Lafayette.

In 1995, she was the president of the American Inns of Court of Acadiana.In 1997, William H. Rehnquist, then Chief Justice of the United States, appointed Methvin as one of only three magistrate judges to the select committee which makes national policy governing the activities of the federal magistrate judges. Magistrate Judge Methvin sentenced thousands of defendants under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the National Wildlife Refuge Act. She presided over numerous felony pretrial matters, including arraignment, bail, and detention hearings. She accepted guilty pleas, issued search warrants and arrest warrants, and selected grand jury members.

Shortly before she retired as magistrate judge, Methvin informed U.S. District Judge Tucker L. Melancon of Lafayette that one of her experienced law clerks, Stacey Marie Blanke (born March 1970), now of Abbeville, had been "yelled at" and demeaned by the attorney Randolph Michael Moity, Jr. (born October 1969) of Iberia Parish, regarding the scheduling of a pretrial conference. The incident led to a contempt hearing against Moity, who allegedly attacked the integrity of two federal judges and misrepresented his own previous disciplinary record. Moity was disbarred for a year from federal court, a decision upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

In 2009, Methvin retired as magistrate judge instead to open her own conflict resolution office in Lafayette, which she still maintains. From 2011 to 2013, Methvin served part-time as a Recall U.S. Magistrate Judge for the federal courts in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In the summer of 2014, she was appointed by the Louisiana Supreme Court to a nearly six-month tenure as interim judge of the Louisiana 27th Judicial District Court based in Opelousas in St. Landry Parish. She succeeded Judge Donald Hebert, who died in office.

Family life

In 1988, Methvin married James Thomas McManus (born February 1951) of Lafayette, and the couple had two sons, Michael James McManus and Connor Hill McManus. McManus had three other children from his former marriage to Dianne Hatten: Christine Lynn McManus, Matthew Robert McManus, and John Thomas McManus, who hence became Methvin's stepchildren.The couple divorced in 2005, the same year that DeWitt Methvin died while closing down his law office after a 55-year career.

In 2006, Methvin went public with a request that her son, Michael, be given additional time to take the American College Testing examination because of the youth's diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She filed a complaint against ACT with the United States Department Of Justice. Her persistence paid off, and ACT allowed the extra time. ADHD is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.Methvin said that her son benefited greatly from the extra time, having scored in the 96 to 99 percentile range. She added that he received multiple college invitations, and his self-esteem was particularly enhanced.

Methvin is also heavily involved in the study of her family genealogy.