Wilma A. Lewis

Wilma Antoinette Lewis (born June 28, 1956) is a senior United States district judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands. She previously served as the first female United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Early life and education Lewis was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico and raised in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Her parents, Walter and Juta Lewis, were both federal civil servants, working for the United States Postal Service and the United States Customs Service, respectively. Lewis graduated as the valedictorian of her class at All Saints Cathedral School in 1974 and earned degrees from Swarthmore College in 1978 and Harvard Law School in 1981.

Career

Lewis worked in the litigation department at Steptoe & Johnson until 1986, when she joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. She rose through the civil division to become deputy chief of the division in 1993. That year, she departed for the United States Department of the Interior, where she served as Associate Solicitor for the Division of General Law. In 1995, she was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate as Inspector General of the Department of the Interior. She became the first Black woman to serve in this position.

In 1998, Lewis was nominated and confirmed as United States attorney for the District of Columbia, the first woman to serve in that position.

District court service In 2011 she was appointed to the District Court of the Virgin Islands. In August 2013, she was named to a seven-year term as Chief Judge of the court. Her term as Chief Judge ended on April 27, 2021. Her 10-year term as District Judge expired in November 2021; but she continued to serve as a "holdover judge" until she or another judge was nominated to a new term. She assumed senior status on February 15, 2025.