When I graduated in 2008, I was offered a position as a litigation associate at an international corporate law firm. Let’s be honest: I was lured in by the prestige of a big law firm job. But the financial crisis struck and I was laid-off in 2010. Although it was personally and financially devastating at the time, I now count it as a blessing. I realized that living life in a way that served others, rather than my own financial gain and pride, would push me closer to be the person I was meant to be. So, instead of returning to corporate life, I decided to enter public service and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Courtney L. Johnson at the DeKalb County Superior Court. I facilitated cases that spanned from criminal felonies, to divorce, to contractual disputes. Throughout my four years at the Superior Court I saw people on what they considered to be the worst day of their life and saw how law and policy made an already hard day better or worse. I saw that judges can only do what the law allows and it is actually our legislators that shape our courtrooms by the policies they adopt and the laws they pass. 

I then moved to the Fulton County Law Department and litigated cases involving emergency service personnel before I went to Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough where I advised school districts and defended school employees in state and federal court. My time serving as counsel for governmental entities allowed me to learn the inner workings of local government; but more importantly, I learned the true impact of local government and how it affects ordinary citizens in their everyday life. 

After practicing law for ten years, I earned my real estate license and started a small real estate company. The flexibility of my new job also gave me the opportunity to expand my advocacy work. I chaired Beloved Atlanta, one of the city’s only residential treatment programs for women exiting sex trafficking, where I oversaw the expansion of the program to four residential homes serving women in Southwest Atlanta who want a fresh start. I worked with ATL Collective, an arts nonprofit that comes alongside the musicians that contribute to Atlanta’s rich culture, and spearheaded an effort to provide emergency grant funds to musicians who suffer a catastrophic loss. I served on the board for Urban Recipe, an organization that provides food stability to the economically fragile, where I facilitated a partnership with KIPP and Atlanta Public Schools to increase student performance by providing reliable food security for needy children and their families. In addition to engaging in these community efforts over the last 18 years, I have also actively served in my home church located in Northwest Atlanta.

Most recently, I co-founded The Georgia 55 Project, one of Atlanta’s largest grassroots get-out-the-vote organizations, which served thousands of citizens during the 2020 election by educating voters and ensuring we were not disenfranchised. It was during my time as a grassroots organizer that I not only saw the power of what happens when people join together with a common goal, but also realized there was a larger force trying to prevent Atlantans from voting. That was when I researched my own State Senator’s position on anti-voting rights bill SB202 last year and I realized not only did she not cast a vote on such an insidious bill, but she did not cast a single vote the entire last legislative session.