We Are History in the Making: Alum Bensonetta Tipton Lane

BENSONETTA TIPTON LANE

Judge, Family Division

Fulton County Superior Court

Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane has 22 years of judicial service, having served on the Fulton County Superior Court for 13 of those years.  She is currently serving as a family division judge.  She has also served as a visiting judge for the Georgia Supreme Court and as a full time judge for the City Court of Atlanta. 

Judge Lane has handled celebrity cases, such as Usher Raymond’s divorce.

Prior to her ascent to the bench, she practiced law with The Law Project of R. Boult, et. al. and in solo practice.  During her legal career her concentration was civil rights and employment law.  After a full trial, she achieved one of the (then) largest class action settlements against the State of Georgia in the case of Kennedy vs. Crittenden, a race and classification discrimination action against Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, in which she represented 2,400 African American employees in over 100 job classifications.  

Judge Lane was born in Washington, D.C. but she attended elementary school in Colorado before graduating high school in Connecticut.  She attended New York University, where she achieved her BA degree, and went on to the University of Massachusetts, where she achieved a masters degree in community-based education.  She then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where she received a juris doctorate degree in 1976.

Judge Lane has been active in her profession.  She is a founder of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys.  She is one of several founding members of the Atlanta chapters of the National Employment Lawyers Association and of the National Conference of Black Lawyers.  She has served on the board of directors for the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Association and is a member of the Atlanta Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges and of the Gate City Bar Association, where she previously served on the executive committee.

In the community, Judge Lane founded the Centennial Justice Project.  She has been a member of the boards of Metro Fair Housing Services, Inc;  The National Conference for Community and Justice; Sisterlove, Inc.;  and Alternate Life Paths Program, Inc., an organization which shelters and mentors young people who have already experienced the penal system.  She has been on the advisory board and an annual judge for the Do the Write Thing Project, an organization that addresses the issue of violence in middle schools.  She is a member of the Leadership Atlanta Class of 1997.

Judge Lane has been honored to be the recipient of awards, such as the Founders Award from the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, the Outstanding Service Award from the Committee for State Employees Rights, the R.E. Thomas civil Rights Award from the Gate City Bar Association, the Lawyer of the Year award from the National Conference of Black Lawyers and the Judge With A Heart Award from the Minority Judges of Georgia.

Judge Lane is the proud mother of Jamila, a psychology student at the University of Washington in Seattle and of George, a student at Grady High School in Atlanta.