10/15/2026
Washington Council of Lawyers Honorary Board Spotlight Series:
Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby
Whether you’ve been a lawyer in the District for five months or five years, you probably know Honorary Board Member, D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby. You could say that a D.C. legal career was her destiny.
When Chief Judge Blackburne-Rigsby was born, D.C. still operated under Jim Crow rule. Both her parents attended the 1963 March on Washington, inspiring her mother to become a New York Supreme Court judge and her father a local elected official in Queens. C.J. Anna Blackburne-Rigsby knew in high school she was meant to be a lawyer. After college at Duke University and a Coro Foundation Public Affairs fellowship in San Francisco, C.J. Blackburne-Rigsby attended Howard University’s School of Law, where she was Lead Articles Editor of the Howard Law Journal, Co-Captain of the Charles Hamilton Houston Moot Court Team, and graduated in the top 5% of her class. As an associate at Hogan Lovells (then Hogan and Hartson), her first job after law school, she worked on a Missouri school desegregation case and multiple pro bono immigration cases. C.J. Blackburne-Rigsby honored our mission to ensure the legal system treats everyone fairly, regardless of money, position, or power, from the day she became a licensed attorney.
In 1992, the Year of the Woman, C.J. Blackburne-Rigsby joined the District of Columbia Office of the Corporation Counsel, now its Office of the Attorney General. After serving as Special Counsel to the Corporation Counsel, she became Deputy Corporation Counsel, where she oversaw the Family Services Division, which handled child abuse and neglect, child support enforcement, and domestic violence work. Its attorneys and staff protected and supported some of the District’s most vulnerable residents.
In 1995, C.J. Blackburne-Rigsby was inspired to move from advocate to judge. She became a Superior Court Magistrate Judge, and five years later, then-President Bill Clinton nominated her for an associate judgeship. During her tenure, she served sat as a criminal, civil, and family division judge and sat on multiple Superior Court committees. She sat on the Court of Appeals by designation in May 2005 and authored the published opinion In Re GE, 879 A.2d 672 (D.C. 2005). In August 2006, then-President George W. Bush nominated her to the Court of Appeals. That Court has been her professional home ever since. She became Chief Judge in March 2017 and is currently in her third term.
C.J. Blackburne-Rigsby is committed to judicial excellence, fairness, and access to justice. Her leadership across the D.C. Courts underscores a distinguished record of service that continues to shape the administration of justice in the nation’s capital and beyond.
