Sarah Gerwig

Director of Experiential Education and Professor of Law   Contact gerwig_s@law.mercer.edu Phone: (478) 301-2195 Other Links  HeinOnline Author Profile Expertise Appellate & Post-Conviction Practice Capital Punishment Criminal Appellate Practice Criminal Justice Criminal Law Criminal Procedure Georgia Law Equal Access to Justice Experiential Learning Juvenile Justice Law & Literature Law & Religion Public Interest Law

Sarah Gerwig is a Director of Experiential Education and Professor at Mercer University School of Law, where she previously served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Shortly after joining the law faculty in 2006, she founded the nationally-recognized Habeas Project, which provides pro bono representation in post-conviction cases across Georgia. She directs Mercer’s unique Introduction to Client Counseling program, and her textbook, What Brings You Here Today? An Introduction to Client Counseling, was published in Summer 2021. Professor Gerwig writes on topics related to criminal law, human rights, law and literature, and legal education, and was a McDonald Distinguished Fellow with Emory University’s Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Law and Religion from 2019-2023. Beyond her teaching and scholarship, she has been engaged with a number of public service organizations, including the Georgia Resource Center, the Georgia Innocence Project, and the Altamaha Riverkeeper. She was the founding co-chair of the College Hill Corridor Commission and served on the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission from 2007-2015, including several years as its chair.

Before joining the Mercer faculty, Professor Gerwig was the Senior Appellate Supervising Attorney in the central office of Georgia’s statewide public defender system. She received her BA, summa cum laude, from Mercer University; her JD from Emory Law School; and her Master of Theological Studies from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where she studied with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her other honors include Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors Award for Excellence in Teaching (2023); the Candler School of Theology Distinguished Alumni Award (2017); the Shanara Gilbert Emerging Clinician Award from the AALS Clinical Legal Education Section (2013); the Robert J. Benham Award Community Service Award (2011); and in 2016 was named as one of Georgia Trend’s 40 Under 40.