Before taking office in 2019, Justice Earls spent more than 30 years representing clients in a wide variety of civil rights cases including voting rights, school desegregation, and employment discrimination matters. She tried numerous cases in both State and Federal courts, including criminal jury trials and complex federal civil rights litigation.

Justice Earls is the founder of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing racial and social justice through legal advocacy, where she served as Executive Director for a decade. She was Director of Advocacy at the Julius Chambers Center for Civil Rights at UNC Law School, and directed the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed her to serve as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Justice Earls has also served on the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission, and Co-Chaired Governor Cooper’s Task Force on Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.

A graduate of Williams College and Yale Law School, Justice Earls has published extensively on voting rights and state constitutions. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the UNC School of Law and remains a leading voice in the fight for equality and justice under law.

Justive Earls lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband Charles Walton. She has two sons, two grandchildren, and a third grandchild on the way.