Sally Q. Yates believes strongly in public service. For her, attorneys have certain skills and opportunities that other people don’t have. For this reason, she said, lawyers should devote some portion of their careers to public service.
“I am always going to be an advocate for public service because I was someone who didn’t expect to get the bug, but once you do, you really feel like you’re making a difference in the world,” she said. “Take a chance at some point in your career to grab hold of that. You may find, like I did, that you just couldn’t let go.”
Currently a Distinguished Lecturer from Government at Georgetown Law, Yates used her career experience to advise current University of Georgia School of Law students March 23 at the Edith House Lecture. The discussion was moderated by Associate Dean Usha Rodrigues and Gracie Shepherd, Edith House Lecture committee chair and vice president of UGA’s Women Law Student Association.
Yates has served in several leadership roles during her career—most recently as acting U.S. attorney general and as deputy attorney general. She also served as a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia and was the first assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the office.
Yates was the executive articles editor of the Georgia Law Review while in law school. She also earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from UGA in 1982.
“The thing I loved most about my law school experience were my classmates,” Yates said. “Here, it is competitive, but not in a cutthroat kind of way. That mindset of rigorous academics, of being competitive but being supportive with your colleagues, carries over in how you practice law.”
During her time at UGA, Yates was inspired by her professors. From C. Ronald Ellington, she learned that the most effective way to motivate people is not through fear of humiliation but rather through engendering respect. She enjoyed the first-year “boot-camp” mentality and the experience the faculty created. She had fun with her fellow classmates and built relationships with many of them that continue today.
Now, Yates is impressed by the experiential learning that is part of UGA’s curriculum.
“I believe that’s a really good thing,” she said. “Sometimes the class that has subject matter that’s fun is a real snooze to practice, but you don’t really know that until you see what lawyers do in that area. You have so many more opportunities to dip your toe into different areas and try things out.”
In 1989, Yates moved from working at the law firm of King & Spalding in Atlanta to working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. The move was a scary change for Yates, who said that she originally thought she would return to commercial litigation after a few years with the federal government.
Yates’ advice to current UGA law students is to take their time deciding what they want to do with their career.
“You don’t have to have it all figured out right now,” she said. “When I was in law school, I had absolutely no thought whatsoever of becoming a prosecutor. Had I stayed into what I thought I wanted to do when I graduated from law school, I wouldn’t have taken the chance to try and experience something else. Stay open to other opportunities and keep your eyes open to other experiences, because you never know what else might be out there.”
The Edith House Lecture is sponsored by the Women Law Students Association in honor of one of the first female graduates of Georgia Law. House, a native of Winder, was co-valedictorian of the law class of 1925, the first to graduate women.
