Ms. Mercedes Gabrielle Ball

State Bar of Georgia

Mercedes G. Ball, Esq. is an Assistant General Counsel and the Director of the Client Assistance Program at the State Bar of Georgia. In this capacity, she leads the resolution of all informal complaints and certain formal grievances lodged against Georgia attorneys. Prior to her time with the State Bar, Mercedes served as a Child Advocate Attorney at the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center where she holistically represented the interests of dependent children in civil court proceedings, mediations, and panels. Before her work with DeKalb, she was a Lead Trial Attorney at a Metro-Atlanta law firm.

Mercedes is driven by a commitment to improve and empower her community through service. From 2013-2020, she volunteered as the Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys (GABWA) Foundation’s Sister2Sister Mentoring Program®, a juvenile court diversion program for court-involved teen girls. In this capacity, she increased the program’s volunteer base and expanded the program’s reach by creating a DeKalb County chapter. Under Mercedes’ leadership, the program served more than two hundred metro-Atlanta teen girls. Additionally, Mercedes also served as the first Director of the GABWA Foundation’s Women’s Health Initiative, an effort to bring needed medical services and health education to underserved communities through free community health fairs. During Mercedes’ tenure, the GABWA Foundation’s Women’s Health Initiative served more than one thousand individuals.

Mercedes is also a Sustainer member of the Junior League of DeKalb County where she served as the 2021-2022 President and Chief Operating Officer. In 2018, Mercedes created the DeKalb Saturday Scholars Initiative (DSSI), a literacy focused Saturday school, through a partnership with the Junior League of DeKalb and Oak View Elementary. DSSI served approximately one hundred children and received grant awards from Macy’s, Inc. Corporate Giving and the Forever Pink Foundation. During Mercedes’ tenure as President of the Junior League of DeKalb, she successfully lobbied the membership to rename and rebrand the organization’s event rental facility and headquarters; thereby, creating a space that better reflects the organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Mercedes is the Vice Chair of the DeKalb County Department of Family and Children Services Advisory Board, a member of the DeKalb Pro Bono Board of Directors, and a proud member of the Decatur Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. She is a 2017 graduate of Emerging Leaders of DeKalb and a 2018 New Leaders Council Atlanta Fellow. She is the recipient of the 2019 University of Georgia School of Law Young Alumni/Alumna of Excellence Award, the 2019 Junior League of DeKalb County President’s Award, and the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys’ 2020 Bensonetta Tipton Lane Award for Commitment to the Family. Mercedes is also a 2022 Outstanding Atlanta Honoree, the recipient of the 2024 Committee to Promote Inclusion in the Profession’s Commitment to Equality Award, and she was named a 2024 Civic Diversity Champion Honoree by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Mercedes earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science, cum laude, from Spelman College and a Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law. She resides in Decatur where, in her spare time, you can find her baking, reading, and spending time with loved ones.