Retired Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Dorothy Toth Beasley will be honored for her lifetime of public service by the Emory Public Interest Committee.

The judge will be recognized with this year's Inspiration Awards—a signature event of the Emory University Law School. The event traditionally has attracted more than 300 attendees and raised funds to provide stipends for students who worked in otherwise unfunded public sector summer jobs. The 24th Annual EPIC Inspiration Awards ceremony is planned for 7 p.m. on Feb. 4 at Emory Law's Tull Auditorium.

The law school's announcement noted that she was the first woman appointed and then elected as judge to the State Court of Fulton County, where she introduced civil mediation and community service sentencing. She was appointed in 1984 as the first woman on the Court of Appeals. Beasley served as a mediator and arbitrator with Henning Mediation and Arbitration Services Inc., from 1999 until retiring in 2017.

She earned an Emory LL.M. degree in international law in 2008, then served four months with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the law school noted. She cofounded Atlanta's Table, a project of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. She served on the Emory Law alumni board and the EPIC advisory board. She assists refugees through the Lutheran Services of Georgia Refugee Program. As a member of the Georgia State Bar iCivics Committee, she seeks to persuade school districts in Georgia to adopt iCivics, a teaching program founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

She started her law school career while working in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. State Department at a time when promotions for women were rare. One day she walked to the closest law school, hoping to take a course to see if she liked law. The dean told her she'd have to enroll as a student, even if only part-time. She did. In 1964, she earned a degree from American University's Washington College of Law.

She clerked and practiced law in Virginia, moved to Atlanta in 1967 and worked at Fisher & Phillips and then as an assistant attorney general under Georgia Attorney General Arthur Bolton.

In the latter position, she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court five times. In Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, she defended Georgia's abortion law. The court heard argument twice and then struck it down. In Furman v. Georgia, the lead case in four death penalty matters, Beasley defended the state law. Although the Supreme Court didn't find the penalty itself unconstitutional—a partial victory for Georgia—it said the way the state imposed it was so arbitrary as to be cruel and unusual.

By the time the high court in 1976 approved Georgia's new death sentence law, which she'd helped write, Beasley had moved on.

An assistant U.S. attorney for three years, she found herself back in state court when then-Gov. George Busbee chose her to fill a judicial vacancy in Fulton County State Court, the first female judge in the county.

In her 22 years as a judge—seven in Fulton State and 15 on the Court of Appeals—only during her final three months did she sit with another woman.

Retired from the appeals court since 1999, Beasley became a mediator and has stayed active in various domestic and international law-related efforts, including a stint working with judges on a Rwanda war crimes trial.

Emory's announcement of the award mentioned another achievement—altering the motto engraved over the bench where she served on the appeals court. Before her time, the court's credo said, "Upon the integrity, wisdom and independence of the judiciary depend the sacred rights of free men." It took her eight years, but in 1992 she persuaded the court to add two words at the end: "and women."

Registration information for the ceremony is posted on Emory law's website.