Athens, Ga. – President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Sally Quillian Yates, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia and a 1986 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, to become U.S. deputy attorney general.
Yates was nominated to replace Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, who is leaving that post in January. The U.S. Senate must confirm the nomination. Yates has served in her current role since 2010.
If confirmed, Yates would hold the No. 2 position in the U.S. Department of Justice. Obama has nominated Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch to replace U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The U.S. Senate will consider both Yates’ and Lynch’s nominations in January.
Georgia Law Dean Rebecca Hanner White, who has known Yates for many years, was delighted to learn of the nomination. “I have always been impressed with Sally’s determination, work ethic and integrity. Her nomination for one of the highest posts in the U.S. Department of Justice speaks to her impeccable record of service to the people of Georgia and our country.”
Before she was appointed as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Yates was first assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the office, prosecuting white collar cases. She also served as the lead prosecutor in the prosecution of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph.
Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she practiced law at the Atlanta office of King & Spalding, where she specialized in commercial litigation.
While in law school, Yates served as the executive articles editor of the Georgia Law Review. She earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from UGA in 1982.
UGA School of Law
Consistently regarded as one of the nation’s top public law schools, the UGA School of Law was established in 1859. With an accomplished faculty, which includes authors of some of the country’s leading legal scholarship, Georgia Law offers three degrees-the Juris Doctor, the Master of Laws and the Master in the Study of Law-and is home to the renowned Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy. Its advocacy program is counted among the nation’s best, winning four national championships in 2013-14 alone. Georgia Law counts six U.S. Supreme Court judicial clerks in the past nine years among its distinguished alumni body of approximately 10,000. For more information, see www.law.uga.edu.
