Elizabeth L. Branch

Elizabeth Lee "Lisa" Branch (born March 30, 1968) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She is a former judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals. Biography Branch was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1968 and was raised in Fulton County. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Davidson College, cum laude, and her Juris Doctor, with distinction, from the Emory University School of Law, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as a notes and comments editor of the Emory Law Journal. She began her legal career by serving for two years as a law clerk to Judge J. Owen Forrester of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. From 2004 to 2008, Branch served as a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush. During this period, she served for three years as the Counselor to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the U. S. Office of Management and Budget, and for one year as the Associate General Counsel for Rules and Legislation at the United States Department of Homeland Security. Prior to ascending to the bench, Branch was a partner in the commercial litigation practice group at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP in Atlanta, where she began her legal career in 1996. She served as a judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals from 2012, when she was appointed by Governor of Georgia Nathan Deal to succeed Charles Mikell, to 2018 when she was appointed to the federal bench.