With only five months in her term, interim Philadelphia District Attorney Kelley B. Hodge the first black female head of the state's largest prosecutor's office vowed to repair the reputation of the office tarnished by her predecessor, Seth Williams.
"This is our restoration period," Hodge told the audience packed into City Hall's ceremonial courtroom for her swearing-in Monday afternoon, adding that it was time for city prosecutors who worked under Williams to "look at adversity in the rearview mirror."
The decision to appoint Hodge was made July 20 by a majority vote from the city's Board of Judges, which consists of all the judges on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The judges selected Hodge out of 13 potential applicants through a confidential vote.
In attendance at Monday's investiture were Mayor Jim Kenney, city judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers, and Democratic district attorney candidate Larry Krasner. Krasner is favored to win in November's general election, as his Republican opponent Beth Grossman faces an uphill battle in the almost uniformly Democratic city.
Krasner declined to say whether he would keep Hodge on the District Attorney's Office staff if he is elected.
Noting he didn't want to "steal her thunder," Krasner also declined to comment on whether he was confident in Hodge's ability to move the District Attorney's Office forward in the wake of Williams' conviction on corruption charges and the damage his scandal had on public confidence in the office.
The Democratic hopeful said, "We respect the process of the election and respect the judges' choice."
"I look forward to meeting her," he added.
Hodge graduated from the University of Virginia in 1993, and earned her law degree three years later from the University of Richmond. She began her career working for the Public Defender's Office in Richmond, Virginia. Starting in 2004 she began working at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, where she went from being a line prosecutor to working as chief of the Municipal Court Unit and then assistant chief of the Juvenile Court Unit.
In 2011, she was appointed by the governor as the Safe Schools Advocate under the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, where she advocated for victims of crime in the Philadelphia school district. In 2015 and 2016 she was the Title IX coordinator and executive assistant to the president of the University of Virginia, before more recently joining Elliott Greenleaf's white-collar and internal investigations practice groups.