LaTisha “Tish” Gotell Faulks joined the ACLU of South Carolina as the Voting Rights Staff Attorney in April 2024.
Tish is a graduate of Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, and the “People's Electric Law School," Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. Tish quickly discovered her love for the law as a tool to fight for and protect people. Tish continued to develop her advocacy and litigation skills as a judicial advisor during her service, first as a law clerk in the New Jersey District Court and then as a staff attorney in the Office of Staff Counsel for the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Tish collaborated closely with federal jurists in those roles by providing legal research and writing support to the courts. She advised and supported the judges on matters appropriate for oral argument.
Tish first joined the ACLU as the legal director with the Alabama affiliate in 2020. In that role, she provided public education, legal advocacy, thought leadership, and collaborative capacity building across Alabama. For example, as the COVID-19 pandemic began, Tish worked in coalition with national and local organizations to balance concerns about public health with constitutional interests. Aside from advocating for incarcerated people in Alabama’s unconstitutional prisons, Tish’s team also responded to Alabama’s attempts to curtail access to abortion (Robinson v. Marshall).
Tish led the development of the ACLU of Alabama’s voter protection program. In collaboration with national and Alabama-based organizations, Tish and her team responded to hundreds of Alabama voters seeking support during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. Tish’s team also fought for innovative and popular policies to support voter turnout during the 2020 election cycle (People First v. Merrill). Finally, Tish and her team prevailed over continuing attempts to erode the Voting Rights Act in the landmark Supreme Court case Allen v. Milligan. As a result of that litigation, the federal court imposed remedial maps that created a second congressional district in which Black Alabamians may elect a candidate of their choosing. She hopes to continue her growth and impact as the voting rights staff attorney as she returns home to South Carolina.
When she is not fighting for the People, Tish seeks to educate those who will join this journey as attorneys, policymakers, and community leaders. To that end, she has served as a law professor in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, teaching constitutional law, criminal appellate procedure, and special problems in constitutional law, such as wrongful conviction litigation and death penalty jurisprudence.
In her downtime, Tish loves to join her professional cook partner in the kitchen. She claims to bake the best chocolate chip cookie on the planet.
