Former Philadelphia judge Lisa Rau won’t run against Attorney General Josh Shapiro in 2020
Despite rumors that she would take a page out of the book of her husband, former criminal defense attorney and current DA Larry Krasner, Rau won't challenge Attorney General Josh Shapiro for the state's top prosecutor's office, but instead is starting a company specializing in civil mediation.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro can breathe a little easier.
Despite rumors that former Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Lisa M. Rau might take a page from the book of her husband, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and mount an insurgent campaign to take over a prosecutor’s office, Rau said she does not intend to join the political fray after leaving the bench this fall, two years before the end of her 10-year term.
Instead, the former civil court judge intends to start a company specializing in mediation, a process by which civil suits can be resolved before trial.
“I can be really clear with you,” she said last week. “I never envisioned running for attorney general.”
Rau, 60, said she was surprised by rumors about her supposed ambitions, which circulated among political insiders over the summer.
“Nothing I ever aspired to,” she said. “I certainly wouldn’t leave the bench to do that.”
Mediation, however, is a process she said she loves because it allows parties in a dispute to search for common ground instead of going through painful and often ugly trials.
There’s no word on whether her new firm, Resonate Mediation & Arbitration, will be engaged to settle the lingering feud between Krasner and Shapiro, which hit fever pitch right around the time Rau announced her resignation from the court in August.