Hon. Anne Elizabeth Barnes

Georgia Court of Appeals

Presiding Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes won election in 1998 to the Georgia Court of Appeals in a three-way race without a runoff, and took office January 1, 1999. She was the first woman to be elected in a state-wide judicial race without having been first appointed to the bench, and was re-elected, without opposition, to a second term in 2004. In 2010 she was elected to a third term, and to a fourth term in 2016. A native Georgian, Judge Barnes grew up in Chamblee and attended DeKalb County public schools. She received her bachelor's degree from Georgia State University, graduating magna cum laude in 1979. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia in 1983 and her Master of Laws in the Judicial Process from the University of Virginia in 2004. Presiding Judge Barnes served on the Judicial Council of Georgia's Standing Committee on Policy and its Budget Committee, the Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism, and the Domestic Violence Committee of the Judicial Council of Georgia, and has been a member of the Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal. She chaired the Judicial Section of the Atlanta Bar Association and served on the Supreme Court's Commission on Interpreters. Presiding Judge Barnes has served on the Board of Directors of Georgia Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA) since 2011. She volunteers with the Truancy Intervention Project's Early Intervention Program (TIP), working with elementary school children, serving on TIP's Board of Directors, from 2014 to 2017, and currently serves on the TIP Advisory Board. She completed a fellowship program with the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center (ASTAR) in 2013, and joined the Board of Directors of the National Courts and Science Institute in 2014. Judge Barnes is a member of the American Bar Association, as well as the Atlanta, DeKalb, and Gate City Bar Associations. Presiding Judge Barnes is a Fellow of the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia, a Master of the Bleckley Inn of Court, and a member of the National Association of Women Judges, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta, and the Old Warhorse Lawyers Club. She is a 2006 graduate of Leadership Atlanta. Presiding Judge Barnes was awarded the Romae Turner Powell Judicial Service Award by the Atlanta Bar Association. She has also been recognized for her service by the DeKalb Bar Association, the Women in the Profession Committee of the Atlanta Bar Association, the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia, and Justice Served. Presiding Judge Barnes is married to Dr. Tom Banks, a physicist, and attends St. Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church.