Tain Kell has some obvious advantages in the contest for Georgia Supreme Court. He’s on the board of advisers for the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group that has produced most of Gov. Nathan Deal’s judicial appointments. He served on the sentencing committee for the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform, a movement dear to the governor’s heart. And he presides over two accountability courts, which are fundamental to the criminal justice reform movement.

Kell was nominated by Robert Ingram of Moore Ingram Johnson & Steele in Marietta. Ingram is a former chairman of the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission, the disciplinary body for the state’s judges, and also served on the U.S. Judicial Nominating Panel. Ingram helped choose Justice Britt Grant for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, creating one of the openings Deal is about to fill.