WHAT: Investiture of Judge Anna Blackburne Rigsby 
 
WHERE: Third-floor atrium of the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW 
 
WHEN: Friday, November 17, at 4:00pm 
 
WHO:  Chief Judge Eric T. Washington will preside 
 

BACKGROUND:   Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby was appointed to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in August 2006.  Prior to her appointment, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby served as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 2000-2006, and served as a Magistrate Judge on the Superior Court from 1995-2000. 
 
Judge Blackburne-Rigsby was born in Washington, DC, and attended elementary and high school in Jamaica, New York.  She graduated from Duke University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and received the university’s Presidential Leadership Award upon graduation.  Following graduation from Duke University, she was selected to be one of twelve Public Affairs Fellows of the Coro Foundation in San Francisco, California.  She earned her law degree from Howard University School of Law in 1987, graduating in the top five percent of her class.    While in law school, she served as the Lead Articles Editor for the Howard Law Journal and served as the Co-Captain for the Charles Hamilton Houston Moot Court Team. 
 
Following law school, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby was an associate at the law firm of  Hogan and Hartson in Washington, DC, for five years, where she litigated commercial, real estate, employment discrimination, and education matters before state and federal courts and administrative agencies.  This included work on a major school desegregation case in Missouri and a case involving a nation wide audit of the employment practices of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  She also spent time on pro bono immigration cases.  In 1992, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby joined the District of Columbia Office of the Corporation Counsel (now Office of the Attorney General), where she served as Special Counsel to the Corporation Counsel working as part of the senior management team of the office.  She then served as Deputy Corporation Counsel in charge of the Family Services Division, where she was responsible for managing the Division’s 65 attorneys and support staff, who handled child abuse and neglect, child support enforcement, and domestic violence cases.  In 1995, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby was appointed to serve as a Hearing Commissioner (redesignated Magistrate Judge) of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, a position she held until her appointment as an Associate Judge in 2000. Judge Blackburne-Rigsby served in the Criminal, Civil, and Family Divisions and the Domestic Violence Unit of the Superior Court. 
 
Judge Blackburne-Rigsby served on various Superior Court committees including the Judicial Education Committee and the Committee on the Selection and Tenure of Magistrate Judges.  Judge BlackburneRigsby has taught Trial Advocacy at the Harvard Law School and taught Professional Responsibility as an Adjunct Professor at the David A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of Columbia.  She has also taught several continuing Legal Education courses for the District of Columbia Bar.  While on Superior Court, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby authored several published decisions, opinions, and articles.  As a Superior Court judge, she sat by designation with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in May 2005, and authored the opinion in, In Re GE, 879 A.2d 672 (DC 2005). 
 
Judge Blackburne-Rigsby has held offices and been a member of several bar and judicial organizations.   She was a former Chair of the Washington Bar Association Judicial Council.  She currently serves as the Vice President for District 4 of the National Association of Women Judges and as the chair of the National Association of Women Judges Fairness and Access to the Courts Committee.  She also serves on the Board of Managerial Trustees for the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ).    In March of 2006, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby represented the IAWJ at a Judicial Conference in Turin, Italy.  In 2003 she traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa to participate in a conference of the African Judicial Network.  Through her work with these organizations, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby has worked to promote the rule of law and equal access to justice. 
 
Judge Blackburne-Rigsby’s volunteer and community service is not limited to legal and judicial activity.  She has served on the DC Rape Crisis Board; she is the President of the Washington, DC Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc., and a member of the Washington DC Chapter of the Links, Inc., and a life long member of the NAACP.  She serves as a Sunday school teacher at Shiloh Baptist Church, and she is the former coach of the Catholic Youth Organization’s girl’s basketball team of St. Gabriel’s Church, and she also coached her son’s biddy basketball team at St. Ann’s Academy.  Judge Blackburne-Rigsby has received awards for her legal, judicial and community service including the Business and Professional Women’s League, “Sojourner Truth Award”.   
 
 Judge Blackburne-Rigsby is married to Judge Robert Rigsby of the District of Columbia Superior Court, also a Colonel and Military Judge in the United States Army Reserves.  They have one nine year old son, Julian.