Laura Coates

Laura Coates is a CNN senior legal analyst, SiriusXM host, and adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law. She is the author of the 2022 memoir Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness.

A former federal prosecutor, Coates served as Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and a Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, specializing in the enforcement of voting rights throughout the United States. As a civil rights attorney, she traveled throughout the nation supervising local and national elections and led investigations into allegations of unconstitutional voting practices. In private practice, Coates was an intellectual property litigator with an expertise in First Amendment and media law. She is a graduate of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and the University of Minnesota Law School.