Beverly Martin (J.D.’81) (center) stands with Dean Usha R. Rodrigues (left) and third-year student Maggie Galvin, vice president of the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers, after presenting the 2025 Edith House Lecture.

Beverly B. Martin, a 1981 graduate of the School of Law, delivered this year’s Edith House Lecture. Martin served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 2010 to 2021. Prior to that, she was a U.S. District judge for the Northern District of Georgia for nearly a decade.

Delivering her lecture in the Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom, a room which bears a painted portrait of her, Martin spoke about the importance of being a leader and observed that students may become leaders whether they plan to or not.

Martin shared stories from her own career in the law, as well as stories of other lawyers who showed how crucial it is for those in the legal field to lead courageously and morally.

Though she is no longer on the bench, Martin has maintained her service to the community, recently working as the executive director of the New York University School of Law Center on Civil Justice.

As she closed her speech during the most recent House Lecture, which was notable for marking the 100th anniversary of House’s graduation as one of the first two women to earn a law degree from UGA, Martin briefly reminisced on the last time she had stood in that courtroom.

It was, in fact, the day that her portrait was placed on the courtroom’s wall with her parents in attendance. While detailing this memory, Martin shared one of the final lessons her parents taught her.

“They never talked about their material accomplishments,” Martin remembered, recalling some of her last conversations with her parents. “What they wanted to talk about … was the kindnesses that they had been able to show to others and the help that they were able to give to people in need.”

The Edith House Lecture is organized by the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers chapter at UGA in honor of one of the first female graduates of the School of Law. House, a native of Winder, Georgia, was co-valedictorian of the law class of 1925, the first to graduate women.

The UGA Law Georgia Association for Women Lawyers chapter benefits from an endowed fund established in 2024 to support programming and activities for the group’s members and the greater law school community.