Currently serving his third term following an election in which he was unopposed, Paul L. Howard, Jr. first assumed the Office of Fulton County District Attorney in January 1997—becoming the first African-American to be elected district attorney in the history of the State of Georgia. He succeeded Lewis Slaton, who held this position for 31 years. Prior to being elected district attorney in 1996, Mr. Howard served as Fulton County’s Solicitor General for four years.

During his first two terms in Office, Paul Howard has achieved a wide range of ambitious goals, transforming the District Attorney’s Office and revolutionizing the County criminal justice system in the process. Some highlights of these changes include top-to-bottom administrative re-structuring of a seriously outdated Office featuring the installation of five Deputy District Attorneys who provide day-to-day supervision of the Office’s divisions; the installation and implementation of a computer-based case management system; as well as the creation of specialized prosecution units, including Major Felony, Crimes Against Women & Children, White Collar Crime, Major Drugs, Public Integrity, Illegal Firearms, and Hate Crimes. Additionally, Mr. Howard has established the Fulton County “Complaint Room” and, with it, has implemented a front-end case-screening system that has reduced the time required to formally charge defendants from several weeks to under one hour—a change that is saving the County millions of dollars in jail-housing costs annually.

Also, in 2000, he introduced the concept of “Community Prosecution” to the County when he opened the first Community Prosecution Office in southwest Atlanta (and has since overseen the opening of a second office in another of the city’s neighborhoods). Through this program, he has implemented an initiative known as “Neighborhood Fresh Start,” which is designed to systemically attack the problem of illegal drugs in our community. “Fresh Start” involves the seizure of residential property used in illegal drug activity that is then renovated and leased to a law enforcement officer for the period of one year, at which time the home is re-sold to a low-income family. The program’s first police officer moved in to his re-modeled home in the Spring of 2003.

Paul Howard has also spearheaded efforts to create a permanent, state-of-the-art Children’s Advocacy Center in Fulton County. A Board of Directors (on which he serves) was formed in 2002, and a fundraising campaign got underway in 2003 with a goal of raising $15 million for the Center.

Mr. Howard’s law career began in 1976 with the City of Atlanta as an assistant solicitor. A year later he became the City’s deputy solicitor. He remained in this position until 1980 when he joined Fulton County as an assistant district attorney in Mr. Slaton’s office, where he served eight years. Upon leaving the District Attorney’s Office, Mr. Howard worked for three years as an attorney for the Atlanta law firm of Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson, Edward & Patterson.

Active in professional and community activities, Mr. Howard currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership Against Domestic Violence, Georgians for Children, and the Fulton Atlanta Community Action Authority. He was appointed to Governor Roy Barnes’ Commission on Certainty in Sentencing and previously served as co-chair of the Senate Structured Sentencing Commission. Mr. Howard also serves as chairperson of the Gate City Bar Association Government Law Section and the Atlanta University Criminal Justice Public Service Institute Courts Committee and is a member of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, the National Black Prosecutors Association, as well as 100 Black Men of Atlanta. He has received numerous awards, including the Georgia Women’s Political Caucus’ 1997 “Good Guy Award,” Atlanta Community Prevention Coalition’s “Outstanding Effort to Stop the Violence Award” and the Gammon Theological Seminary’s “Outstanding Community Service Award.” Mr. Howard was recently recognized by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in its annual “Who’s Who in Law & Accounting” issue and as “One of the 50 Most Influential Georgians” by Georgia Informer magazine.

A cum laude graduate of Morehouse College in political science, Mr. Howard received the school’s Marvin C. Magnum Legal Achievement Award. His exemplary undergraduate performance also earned him an academic scholarship at Emory University’s School of Law. While doing graduate work at Emory, Mr. Howard became the president of the Black American Law Students Association and later the vice president of the Student Bar Association. Mr. Howard is a native of Midville, Georgia. He is married to Petrina Moody and has three children, a boy and two girls.