Vanessa Ruiz (born March 22, 1950) is a Senior associate judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Ruiz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and in 1975 from Georgetown University Law Center with a Juris Doctor. She was appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton on July 12, 1994, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 7, 1994. Prior to being appointed to the Court, Ruiz was Corporation Counsel (now called Attorney General of the District of Columbia) for the District of Columbia and an attorney in private practice, primarily in the Washington, D.C., office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Early in her career, Ruiz was one of the first women to argue a case before