First Court of Appeals

Place 3

Justice Veronica Rivas-Molloy was elected to the First Court of Appeals in November 2020. Since joining the bench, she has authored hundreds of reasoned majority opinions and worked on countless more appeals spanning civil, criminal, probate, and family law matters.

Justice Rivas-Molloy graduated with honors from the University of Texas at El Paso, earning a double major in Criminal Justice and Spanish. She received her law degree magna cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center, where she served on the Houston Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif and the Order of the Barons.

A first-generation college graduate and attorney, Justice Rivas-Molloy is the first immigrant elected to the First Court of Appeals and only the third Hispanic woman to serve on the Court. Her judicial service has been recognized both locally and nationally. She was recently named Judge of the Year by the Hispanic Bar Association of Houston and received the Judicial Leadership Award from the National Hispanic Bar Foundation.

Prior to taking the bench, Justice Rivas-Molloy built a distinguished 20-year career as a litigator and appellate attorney. She represented clients in complex business disputes across Texas, throughout the United States, and internationally. Fluent in Spanish, she frequently represented international clients in cross-border matters. She began her legal career as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Ewing Werlein, Jr., United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and later practiced at Baker Botts and Jones Walker, where she was recognized as a rising star in business litigation. In addition, she served as a volunteer prosecutor for the City of Houston, trying numerous jury trials.

Justice Rivas-Molloy has long been committed to public service. She has served as pro bono General Counsel for Holy Trinity Episcopal School of Greater Houston and provided pro bono representation to women and unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings, as well as to individuals in a range of civil disputes. She is a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and a Life Fellow of the Houston Bar Foundation.