Ms. Kristina Hammer Blum

Gwinnett County Magistrate Court

Kristina Hammer Blum

Chief Magistrate Gwinnett County

Kristina Hammer Blum is the Chief Magistrate of the Gwinnett County Magistrate Court.  Judge Blum began her legal career in 1994.  Although she practiced in a variety of areas, she spent most of her time in the federal courts, specializing in the representation of city and county governments and public officials.  After spending seven years as a Senior Assistant County Attorney for Gwinnett County, she was appointed to the Magistrate Court in 2005 and became the Chief Magistrate on January 9, 2013.  As Chief Magistrate, she presides over one of the busiest courts in the State of Georgia (handling approximately 100,000 matters a year).

Judge Blum lived all over the United States growing up as a proud “Air Force Brat;” she chose Gwinnett County as her forever home because of its vibrant and inclusive community, for which she remains very involved and committed.  Judge Blum is a 2009 graduate of Leadership Gwinnett, and she has served on the Leadership Gwinnett Steering Committee as the Retreats Co-Chair since 2011.  She is an Executive Board Member of the Rotary Club of Sugarloaf, and she has served on the Advisory Boards for the Gwinnett Reentry Intervention Program (“GRIP”), Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful, and United Way.  For three years, she was the production coordinator for the Hi Hope Service Center’s annual Gwinnett’s Kid’s Got Talent Show benefiting adults with developmental disabilities. 

Judge Blum is a Past President of the Georgia Magistrate Council and served as a member of the Judicial Council of Georgia from June 2015 until June 2017.  She previously served on the Justice for All Strategic Action Plan Work Group for the State Bar of Georgia and is presently a member of the Access to Justice Advisory Board for the Judicial Council of Georgia.  Judge Blum is also a frequent instructor for the Georgia Institute for Continuing Judicial Education, where she was awarded the Excellence in Judicial Education Medallion.  

As Gwinnett’s first female Chief Magistrate, in 2014, the League of Women Voters honored Judge Blum with their Legacy Award.   In 2015, the Council of Magistrate Court Judges presented her with their “Workhorse of the Year” Award.  In addition, Judge Blum received a Public Service Award from the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce in 2016. 

In 2020, Judge Blum, Commissioner Marlene Fosque, Matt Elder of HomeFirst Gwinnett, and Gwinnett County Grants Director Shannon Candler joined forces to create and implement Project RESET and Project RESET 2.0, an eviction intervention program that built a pipeline directly from active eviction and pre-eviction cases to federal COVID relief funding.  Launched November 1, 2020, Project RESET 2.0 utilized over $86 million in federal financial assistance for 7,319 households.  In total, Project RESET 2.0 ensured that 18,243 individuals in Gwinnett County remained stably housed during the pandemic by paying rental arrears directly to landlords, thereby protecting Gwinnett County’s portfolio of affordable housing.  Several other jurisdictions emulated the Project RESET model, which was named a “top performer” and national best practice by the U.S. Treasury Department and, in 2022, Project RESET received the National Association of Counties Achievement Award.   

Kristina has been married for 29 years to the love of her life, Jim Blum; Jim has a law office in Peachtree Corners (Blum & Campbell, LLC) where he specializes in complex real estate litigation.  She is also proud mom to two amazing kids, Merritt (a senior Industrial Engineering Major at Georgia Tech who just time-qualified for the Boston Marathon) and Corbin (a freshman at UGA who plays mellophone in the Redcoat Marching Band).  Outside of work, Kristina is an avid SCUBA diver (certified through Rescue Diver with over 300 dives), who also loves snow skiing, sewing, CrossFit, and she sings and plays guitar in her band Honey & Oates.  On weekends, you can usually find the Blums on a campground somewhere with friends setting up their (second!) camper (the “B Hive”).