Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes won election in 1998 to the Georgia Court of Appeals and was re-elected without opposition to a second term in 2004. In 2010 she was re-elected with more votes than any other candidate in the state of Georgia. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia and her Master of Laws in the Judicial Process from the University of Virginia. “I wasn't encouraged to run for judge on the Court of Appeals by the powers that be in 1996. The husband of my friend asked, ‘Why don't you run anyway?’ So I did! Without anyone’s backing in my social group, I almost won my first statewide race with 48.2% of the vote.”