Created in 1891 by the Evarts Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit now has its first Latina judge in the 132-year history of the New Orleans-based court.
The U.S. Senate voted 80-12 to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Irma Ramirez of Dallas to the Fifth Circuit, which has 17 active appellate judges and eight senior status judges. President Joseph Biden nominated Judge Ramirez to replace Judge Gregg Costa, who retired last year. Both Texas senators supported Judge Ramirez’s confirmation.
“It is an historic moment to finally have a Hispanic woman on the court — a long time coming,” said Costa, who is now a partner in the Houston office of Gibson Dunn. “I’m excited to see the contributions that she makes.”
No date has been announced for Judge Ramirez to be sworn in as an appellate judge. But Costa said she should expect a hectic month ahead.
“The first few weeks are a whirlwind,” he said. “She will need to meet and get to know her new fellow Fifth Circuit judges, hire four law clerks, set up her office and get up to speed on the court’s caseload. It is a steep learning curve.”
U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, whose chambers are down the hall from Judge Ramirez’s in the Dallas federal courthouse, said the Northern District of Texas’ loss is the country’s gain.
“Judge Ramirez is a wonderful person and judge,” Judge Lynn said. “The breadth of her experience and her years as a magistrate brings great insight from the trial judge perspective to the appeals court.”
Lawyers who have practiced before Judge Ramirez say she is a straight shooter with no political agendas, though she is joining a Fifth Circuit that is widely viewed as the most conservative and one of the most activist appellate courts in the U.S.
“Judge Ramirez has a remarkable personal story. She is impressively humble, and she is a tremendous mentor to many young lawyers,” said Winston & Strawn partner Matt Orwig, who served on the bipartisan Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee that makes recommendations to Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. “She is devoted to following the law.”
Judge Ramirez was born in Brownfield in West Texas but grew up in neighboring Plains, which had a population of 1,100. Her parents were Mexican immigrants who came to the U.S. for work.
“My dad always said to me, ‘Study hard so you don’t have to work in the fields like I do.’ Education was very important to him,” Judge Ramirez said in a Dallas Bar Association video interview in 2022.
She was 15 and a sophomore in high school when she started thinking about becoming a lawyer.
“I refused to take home economics. I took speech and debate instead,” she told the DBA. “The idea of extemporaneously speaking and debating and getting to argue with the teacher was so much fun. Doing the research and making sure that we prepared the arguments. It was so much fun.”
Judge Ramirez went to West Texas A&M University in Canyon, which is close to Amarillo.
“That was as far as my mother was willing to let me go,” she said. “You didn’t leave the house unless you were getting married.”
Judge Ramirez had no lawyers in her family or even among her friends’ families. But at the end of her first year of college, the part-time county attorney asked if she wanted to work that summer doing clerical work for his office.
“I jumped at it,” Ramirez said. “He was working on a murder case. A woman’s boyfriend had beaten her toddler son to death. The description of what happened and the pictures made me realize that I wanted to help people and put away bad guys who hurt little kids.”
Judge Ramirez received the Sarah T. Hughes Scholarship, which allowed her to go to Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, where she graduated in 1991.
Moving to Dallas and attending SMU Law was “a culture shock.”
“A professor my first year gave us a hypothetical about a couple driving away in a Beemer,” she said. “I didn’t know what that was, and I had to ask one of my classmates what the professor was talking about. It was all so new.”
Locke Purnell Rain Harrell — now Locke Lord — hired Ramirez as an associate in litigation, where she worked for four years. In 1995, she was hired as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Texas.
“I know this is only in my head; but the first time I appeared in federal court and said my name and said I represent the people of the United States, I swear the lights went up and there was a choir in the background,” Judge Ramirez told the DBA in 2022. “The power of the government rests on your shoulders. Your duty is to pursue justice. It was a white hat moment, especially for the daughter of an immigrant and farmer workers who had no formal education.”
In 2002, the Northern District made Judge Ramirez a magistrate judge.
Judge Ramirez told the DBA that one surprise she has felt as a judge is “the weight of the decisions” she has had to make.
“It is very hard to watch the family’s reactions to the decisions I have to make,” she said. “The moms and dads and wives and the children and the hurt and pain — it is not just about the one person. It is about the whole family.”
“One of the great things I get to do in my current job is to preside over naturalization ceremonies,” she said. “It is so beautiful to see people’s reaction when I tell them that they are being sworn in by the daughter of an immigrant and that someday their children might be sitting in my chair doing the same thing.”