Sarah Geraghty, an Emory Law lecturer and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, has been nominated by President Biden to fill a seat on Georgia’s U.S. District Court, Northern District, after Judge Amy Totenberg took senior status earlier this year.

Geraghty is known for her work in civil rights, habeas corpus, and class actions and she has litigated cases to challenge inhumane prison conditions, open records law violations, denial of the right to counsel, and incarceration of the indigent for debt. She has published articles in the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, Stanford Law & Policy Review, and Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and her work against the criminalization of poverty has been cited in a range of publications, including the New York Times. 

Geraghty earned her Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University, where she earned departmental honors in comparative literature. She earned her J.D. and a Master of Social Work from University of Michigan. Following law school, she served as law clerk for the Honorable James B. Zagel, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois. 

Geraghty began her tenure at Southern Center for Human Rights in 2003 as a staff attorney. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Emory Law and Georgia State College of Law. She has been honored for her work often, including receiving the 2017 Emory Law EPIC Inspiration Award for Unsung Devotion to Those Most in Need. In 2020, she was named “Attorney of the Year” by the Fulton County Daily Report, and also received a “Legal Legend” award from the American Constitution Society. She is a member of the Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, and New York bars.