Samantha Hamilton

Impact Litigation Attorney

Samantha "Sam" Hamilton represents clients in federal court on constitutional law issues related to jail and prison conditions, government accountability, and free expression. Her interest in social justice sprouted out of her upbringing in Chula Vista, California as the child of a Filipino immigrant.

Before joining Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Sam was an attorney with the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law, where she litigated on behalf of a photojournalist arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest, activists sued by a commercial developer, and women in the Irwin County Detention Center who were subjected to non-consensual and unnecessary medical and gynecological procedures. While at the Clinic, Sam also counseled reporters across Georgia on media law issues such as access to public records, newsgathering, and publication liability. Sam was also the 2022-2023 First Amendment Fellow in The New York Times Legal Department, where she brought Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services for records related to the welfare of unaccompanied migrant children and against the Department of Defense for records related to alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When Sam was a Justice Fellow at the civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy, she litigated wrongful conviction and prisoners’ rights lawsuits under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments in federal district and appellate courts in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Illinois.

Prior to law school, Sam was an organizer with the Lakota People's Law Project. She graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz and University of California, Berkeley School of Law.