About Saraliene
Saraliene Durrett built a career that moves between the courtroom and the written opinion. She studied languages and liberal arts before turning to law; that combination shapes how she prepares a case and how she speaks for clients.
She earned a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1995 after several years of undergraduate study beginning in 1991. In 1994 she attended a Mandarin Chinese immersion course at Indiana University–Bloomington. She later attended the University of Kansas School of Law, completing her J.D. in 2007.
Her early legal work was in appellate and federal courtrooms. She served as a law clerk to Judge Jerry G. Elliott of the Kansas Court of Appeals in 2007. The following year she clerked for Judge James C. Mahan at the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. Those clerkships exposed her to appellate briefing and federal trial procedure.
In 2009 she joined Chesnoff & Schonfeld as a criminal defense lawyer. That role put her in court frequently and allowed her to handle a range of misdemeanor and felony matters. She also became active in professional associations around that time, joining the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Federal Bar Association in 2009.
In 2013 she opened her own practice, Saraliene Smith Durrett, LLC. She also maintains memberships in the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers beginning in 2013. Her bar and court admissions include Georgia, Kansas and Nevada, the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, the 6th, 9th and 11th Circuits, and the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Georgia and the District of Nevada.
Durrett has pursued training that aligns with courtroom work. She holds a Criminal Defense Trial Skills Certificate from the National Criminal Defense Trial Practice Institute. She also completed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s DUI Detection and Field Sobriety Tests training course. Those credentials reflect the trial work and DUI matters that appear often in her practice.
Her practice style favors preparation and clarity. She has experience drafting appellate briefs, defending clients at trial, and responding to procedural issues in federal and state courts. She has combined clerkship experience, courtroom practice, and targeted training in a single practice model.
She is the owner of Saraliene Smith Durrett, LLC, where she continues to handle criminal defense, DUI, and appellate matters in state and federal courts.
