ALUMNI PROFILE
Double Dawg on the bench New 11th U.S. Circuit Court judge earned two degrees at UGA by Lori Johnston (ABJ ’95) A conversation with a friend in Creswell Hall turned Julie Carnes toward a successful legal career and her ultimately unanimous confirmation to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014. Carnes planned to be a high school English teacher, but had filled her undergraduate schedule with literature courses instead of education classes. Her friend suggested that Carnes follow after her father, Charles, a former state representative who spent 17 years as chief judge of the Fulton County State Court. Carnes (AB ’72, JD ’75) only applied to Georgia Law. The spontaneous decision has served her well. While serving as chief judge for the Northern District of Georgia, Carnes and six others were nominated for Georgia federal court vacancies by President Barack Obama in December 2013. She was the first to be confirmed last July. “I’m just so happy for her, that in this current political environment, she could be confirmed, without opposition, by the U.S. Senate. That speaks volumes for how well respected she is,” says UGA President Jere Morehead. Law school wasn’t a traditional decision for a woman during the ’70s, says Carnes, who was among 26 female students in the School of Law. A legal career fit her decisive, analytic nature and her love for writing. She’s quoted Shakespeare from the bench, such as when she baffled a lawyer with the comment: “It was sort of a plague on both your houses, right?” Morehead, a fellow assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta in the ’80s, says he and other colleagues sought Carnes’ guidance because of her understanding of the law, especially in appellate matters, and her supportive nature. “She was the person who could point to a particular volume in the law library and take you to it and say, ‘This is the case you need to rely upon.’” Carnes served on the seven-member U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1990 to 1996 and was a member of the 2014 search committee for the new Georgia Law dean. She is one of only three women with portraits in the school’s hallways. “That says a lot about her career and the wide respect that she has,” Morehead says. On her desk in the Elbert P. Tuttle Court of Appeals
Julie Carnes
JOHN DISNEY/DAILY REPORT
Building in Atlanta, a framed photo of her parents sits near a foot-tall stack of case files and decisions for her to review, write and sign for the 11th Circuit, which has the highest number of cases per judge. She says she wants to make proud Obama and others, including Sen. Johnny Isakson (BBA ’66) and former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (BBA ’66), who supported her. “My goal, though, is to do the same kind of work I did at the District Court, which is to decide things fairly and according to the law.”
—Lori Johnston is a writer living in Bogart.
MARCH 2015 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE
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