Areas of Expertise
Trial Advocacy, Criminal Law, Mental Health Law
Biography
The Honorable Annie Deets is a magistrate court judge in DeKalb County, Georgia, an adjunct professor at Emory University School of Law, and the former director of training and professional development at the DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office in metro Atlanta, where she designed and managed training and professional development for an office of more than 100 employees.
Deets brings broad civil and criminal litigation experience, including her service as a judge, legal services attorney, private practitioner, prosecutor, and public defender. As a public defender, she handled complex and high-profile criminal cases in the metro Atlanta area. Her experience across roles gives her a practical and balanced perspective on advocacy, credibility, strategy, persuasion, and professional judgment.
At Emory Law, Deets teaches experiential advocacy courses, including Trial Advocacy and Jury Selection. She has also frequently served as a team leader for Emory Law’s Kessler-Eidson Program for Trial Techniques, one of the country’s largest trial advocacy programs. Her teaching also includes trial skills, deposition skills, motions practice, expert witness testimony, storytelling, courtroom technology, and criminal competency and responsibility.
Deets serves on the National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s Board of Trustees and is a frequent NITA program director and faculty member for national, international, and custom programs, including the Atlanta Trial Skills, Advanced Trial Skills, and Deposition Skills programs. In 2020, she received NITA’s Prentice Marshall Faculty Award for the Development of Innovative Teaching Methods, and in 2018 she was selected as one of three faculty members nationwide for NITA’s Next Generation Faculty Development Program.
Deets graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School, where she received the Carl J. Ruskowski Clinical Legal Education Award, given to the student who demonstrated excellence in the practice of law and best exemplified the highest standards of the legal profession. She attended Southern Methodist University on a golf scholarship and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.