James Keith

James Keith was a judge on the Circuit Court from 1966 to 1978. He previously served as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from the Providence District from 1956 to 1962.

Keith was born and grew up in Warrenton, Virginia, the son of John Augustine Chilton Keith and the former Mary Welby Scott. He graduated from the private Stuyvesant School in Warrenton in 1928.

Keith graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1932, and from Harvard University Law School in 1935.

He married the former Anne Harrison Byrd in November of 1940.

Keith joined the firm of Barbour, Garnett and Pickett in 1935. Upon his becoming a name partner, the firm became known as Barbour, Garnett, Pickett, and Keith, which later became Pickett, Keith, and Mackell following the deaths of John Strode Barbour in 1952 and Christopher B. Garnett in 1955.

In 1951, Keith sought the Democratic nomination to the Virginia House of Delegates, but was defeated in the August 7 primary by incumbent Edwin W. Lynch.

Because the redistricting of 1953 had so thoroughly altered district boundaries in the county, Providence supervisor G. W. Carper became the supervisor for the Dranesville District, replacing Maurice W. Fox and leaving Providence unrepresented on the Board.

In 1955, Keith sought the Democratic nomination as supervisor from the Providence district, defeating Thomas H. Woods and Roland M. Doldor in the July 12 primary. He would go on to defeat Republican James A. Lawrence in the November 8, 1955 election.

Opposed by Republican Glenn S. Burklund in the election of 1959, Keith was reelected to the Board of Supervisors.

Following the incorporation of Fairfax as a city in 1961, Keith resigned his seat on the Board of Supervisors on June 1, 1962, to run for a seat on the Fairfax City Council.

Keith was appointed to the bench of the 16th Judicial Circuit by Governor Mills E. Godwin on December 16, 1966.

Judge Keith decided to retire on January 31, 1978, formally submitting his resignation letter on October 12, and left the bench on December 31.

In retirement, Judge Keith volunteered at the Fairfax office of the Legal Aid Society through the early 1990's.