Judge Bailey earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence from Vanderbilt Law School, and is licensed to practice law in Georgia, Tennessee, and New York. He worked as a sole practitioner at the Law Office of Charles E. Bailey and as a registered neutral with the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution qualified in general civil mediation, arbitration, domestic relations mediation, and specialized domestic violence mediation.
Prior to his full-time appointment to the State Court, Judge Bailey served from 2016 through 2021 as a Municipal Court judge for the City of Decatur and as a pro hac judge for the State Court of DeKalb County, Traffic Division. He also served as a pro hac judge for the Recorders Court of DeKalb County from 2013 through 2015.
Immediately after law school, Judge Bailey served as Staff Attorney and Law Clerk to the late Honorable John T. Nixon, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. His legal career has since included private practice in the areas of domestic relations law, criminal defense, juvenile delinquency proceedings, workers compensation, personal injury, and wrongful death litigation. Judge Bailey also worked with the Public Defender’s offices of DeKalb County (GA), Otsego County (NY), and Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County (TN). He also served as an approved neutral for the Superior Court ADR programs of DeKalb County, Fulton County, and Cobb County.
One of Judge Bailey’s mentors was the late U.S. District Court Judge John T. Nixon. A life-long champion of civil rights, Judge Nixon established a biracial commission in 1962 while serving as City Attorney for Anniston, Alabama. He later worked as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and prosecuted a local Ku Klux Klan leader in 1964 for shooting into a black church. Judge Nixon was present at the Selma to Montgomery marches, including the march on Bloody Sunday. In observance of Bloody Sunday, Judge Nixon took his law clerks to Selma every year where he would walk with them across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Judge Nixon served on the federal bench for nearly 36 years. Judge Nixon died December 19, 2019.
Judge Bailey was born in Decatur, DeKalb County, Georgia. He grew up in the (then) suburb of Sandy Springs attending Guy Webb Elementary School, Sandy Springs Middle School, and North Springs High School. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University. Before enrolling in law school, he worked at a community mental health center providing intensive case management services to people with severe and chronic mental illness, and for several years in the field of higher education administration. He is the proud father of two adult children, including an adult son with intellectual and developmental disabilities.