Attorney, Senior Legal Analyst at CNN

Laura Coates | Biography

Coates facilitated a CNN special, 'White House in Crisis: The Impeachment Inquiry' in June 2020 

• By Ojasbi
• Update : April 16, 2022

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Laura Coates BookLaura Coates is the Senior Legal Analyst of CNN. 

Who is Laura Coates?

Laura Coates, a well-known attorney, pundit, author, and associate professor at the George Washington University School of Law, is now a Senior Legal Analyst at CNN.

Coates has worked as an attorney in both private and public firms. However, she is currently not authorized to practice law or represent private clients. Instead, she hosts the weekday talk show, The Laura Coates Show, on SiriusXM's P.O.T.U.S. channel. 

She has also penned the 2016 bestselling book 'You Have the Right: A Constitutional Guide to Policing the Police,' in light of police liability and the police-community relationship.

Early Bio and Education

Coates was born on 11 July 1980 in the Minnesota city of Saint Paul. She did her bachelor's degree in arts at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2011. She went on to earn her JD from the University of Minnesota Law School before starting her legal career in the private sector.

Legal Career

Coates initially worked as an attorney in private firms in Minnesota and New York, where she addressed cases varying from property rights lawsuits to the first amendment debates to slander and media law. 

She was eventually recruited under public service at the United States Department of Justice, where she flourished as a federal prosecutor. During the Bush and Obama administrations, she worked as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, focusing on the execution of the right to vote across the country. In addition, she also worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where she prosecuted a wide range of serious felony charges, including drug trafficking, armed crimes, domestic abuse, child abuse, and sexual violence. 

Coates' Continuing Legal Education (CLE) status is voluntarily restricted at the Minnesota Judicial Branch, which means she has chosen not to maintain an active license and meet the CLE Rules' educational and reporting obligations. Regardless of her good standing, she is not authorized to practice law as of now.

Career As a Host

Coates has been hosting The Laura Coates Show, which initially began as a daily show but is now a weekday talk show on SiriusXM's P.O.T.U.S. channel since 2017. In the show, Coates "edutains" (educates and entertains) the audiences with a stimulating debate on the nexus of politics, law, and pop culture. Her intelligence, humor, elegance, and pranks come in parallel with the formal segments of the program. 

Career As an Assistant Professor

Adding to her career experiences, Coates also works as an associate professor at George Washington University School of Law and delivers insights on civil and human rights, social equity, economic independence, and springs of faith across the country. Her diverse experience helped her carry the title of constitutional expert. Moreover, her convincing neutrality and ability to decipher complicated and emotionally sensitive issues without any bias have earned her acclaim throughout the world. 

Career As a Senior Legal Analyst

Coates serves as a senior legal analyst at CNN. She was a crucial figure in CNN's coverage of President Donald Trump's impeachment proceedings. She facilitated a special titled White House in Crisis: The Impeachment Inquiry in June 2020. 

Besides, following the death of George Floyd, she made significant contributions to the coverage of the turmoil in Minneapolis and the worldwide Black Lives Matters demonstrations. Also, she hosted a segment, Mayors Who Matter: A CNN Town Hall on Race and Covid-19, with four African-American female mayors on the front lines of the national tragedy on race. Furthermore, she fills in for CNN's Don Lemon frequently, conducting major interviews and enlightening primetime audiences.

Also Read: Boris Sanchez - Age, CNN, Heritage & Parents

She Has Penned Bestselling Books

Coates penned the 2016 bestselling book, 'You Have the Right: A Constitutional Guide to Policing the Police' in response to the urgent need for enhanced police oversight and improved police-community connections. She cuts through the legal jargon in the book to assist ordinary people in understanding their rights under the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.

Her book soon became a best-seller both inside and beyond the country because of its plain language, the growth of clear police brutality, and the 2016 political climate. It was also seen as a reference to the laws controlling police interaction by people all around the country.

Similarly, Coates gathers nearly a dozen stories in her new essay collection 'Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness.' The book was released in January 2022 by Simon and Schuster to show the kind of injustice she was not just watching but also forced to participate in.

"The transition from enforcing civil rights legislation to criminal prosecution represented a seismic shift in how others perceived me, and even how I perceived myself," Coates wrote. "I had been a trusted champion of people who looked like me. But now, I was often distrusted as an agent of a system that disproportionately filled prisons with people who looked like me."

In the book, Coates exposes the divide between what is right and what is lawful by examining the tension between the idealism of the law and the reality of operating within the constraints of the legal system. She also offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Black defendants are treated differently in court and how the judicial system appears to be the one place where minorities are overrepresented. 

According to a January 2022 article by The Rolling Stone, this section has been trimmed for the duration where Coates is assigned to cover a courtroom, a common duty in which a government attorney is tasked with handling "the more mundane aspects of [the] most inconsequential cases" for other prosecutors. 

Moreover, when a defendant alleges mistaken identity that the authorities have the wrong man, Coates witnessed firsthand the mistreatment civilians face at the hands of the government.

Is She Married to Dale Gordon?

Many online websites have identified her husband as Dale Gordon. However, the allegations about her husband's name appear to be false. She has never revealed her husband's name in her appearances or posts on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Although Coates has obscured her husband's photo and name, it is ascertained that she and her husband married in July. During their honeymoon, they also took the "Eurorail train" and received a bottle of wine from a stranger. 

On 31 July 2019, the CNN journalist published the information in an Instagram post. Coates shared a photo of a note she received from a waitress at a restaurant. She then said she received the message on her anniversary while out for a family meal. She also mentioned that a stranger covered her bill as a random act of compassion.

Then in 2020, she also posted a tweet about her husband that revealed they were still married. The tweet read, "My husband just asked me who 'Sussudio' is...? Apparently, he missed all of the '80s soooo... I'll obviously need to put together a presentation to explain it all. Any suggestions on what else to include?"

However, after that, she never mentioned anything about her husband.

A Proud Mother of Two

The couple has two kids, a son, and a daughter. While her son's birth date and the name remain unknown, her daughter was born in 2014. 

Coates also shared pictures of her children on her social media. For instance, she shared her children's pictures on Halloween 2020.

Her Daughter Battles With Her Dark Skin

On 20 August 2018, Coates revealed that her daughter has a problem with her skin tone. She was sad and couldn't stop crying on her program on the Sirius XM as she relived the moment her daughter Sydney informed her she loathed her skin tone. She cried as she spoke:

"It was so devastating to hear my daughter tell me this morning that she just didn't like the way she looked. It broke my heart." Coates said, "If anyone has any suggestion for me about what I can do to make my daughter feel what I know she is — because dropping her off at school this morning almost killed me."

Coates also highlighted her own experience, in which she was bullied because of her black heritage. She expressed her fear that her toddler would be harmed in the same way. 

She further explained what had happened. Moreover, a few students at her 4-year-old daughter's school had excluded her from their "princess tent" party because of her dark skin. As a result, her daughter had become self-conscious about her skin.