Sara Lisznyai has always been a high achiever. Not only does she run a legal practice — Marks & Lisznyai in Jonesville, Mich. — but she is an active volunteer.
Since moving to Jonesville in 1996, Lisznyai has served on the board of eight community organizations, including St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, and the Hillsdale County Intermediate School District Board of Education, of which she is now vice president.
In the fall, Lisznyai will be running for Hillsdale County District Court Judge against Hillsdale County Prosecuting Attorney Neal Brady .
Attorney Kevin Shirk has known Lisznyai for about as long as she has been in Jonesville and considers her a worthy candidate.
“She’s on the opposite side of a lot of cases I’m involved in,” Shirk said. “She’s a top-notch lawyer.”
Shirk mentioned Lisznyai’s breadth of legal experience as one of the things that would qualify her to be a judge.
Eighteen years of working at Marks & Lisznyai has enabled her to gain experience with many kinds of law, ranging from estate planning to criminal law, from bankruptcy to abortion. She has also worked as a case evaluator — a similar role to judge, but as part of a panel of lawyers — in upwards of 30 cases.
“It’d probably be easier to tell you what I don’t do,” Lisznyai said. “I don’t do malpractice, and I don’t do workers comp. Pretty much everything else, we deal with.”
Lisznyai graduated with a degree in law from Wayne State University in 1990. From there, she worked for two Detroit-area legal firms. At one time, Lisznyai worked on environmental cases so big they required 30 to 40 lawyers.
“It was federal litigation. I traveled throughout the country to do these different depositions,” Lisznyai said. “It was a wonderful experience for me, but it was very all-consuming. You pretty much lived it.”
Her workload in Detroit drove Lisznyai to move to Jonesville with her family. Her kids were small then, and Lisznyai wanted to be able to spend more time with them.
“My life pretty much revolved around them,” Lisznyai said. “Moving here allowed me to participate in their lives the way I wanted to and see all their different accomplishments. They’ve been my priority as I was raising them.”
Eric and Elyse Lisznyai are grown now, both students at the University of Michigan. With them grown, Lisznyai had the opportunity to consider becoming a candidate.
Lisznyai first thought about running for judge back in December, when current District Court Judge Donald Sanderson, who’s held the position for 36 years, announced that he was retiring. After praying and talking with friends and colleagues about the idea, she is excited about the prospect.
“You don’t get too many opportunities to do something like this,” Lisznyai said. “If you can picture a job posting that comes up that lists all of the qualifications and you meet all of those qualifications, that’s what excites me about the job.”
Elyse is proud of her mom for running for judge and looks forward to supporting her in it.
“I think everything that she’s taught me growing up is kind of embodied in this experience that she’s going through, and I’m going to be there to support her just like she’s been there to support me.”