LINDA YANEZ, FROM IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY HELPING CENTRAL AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS TO THIRTEENTH DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

 submitted by Rene Torres

Rene Torres sent me the 1989 photo above of immigration attorney Linda Yanez at the Casa Oscar Romero Shelter (now the Ozanam Center) assisting Central American immigrants to submit asylum applications.  

Linda Reyna Yañez later became a judge on the Texas Thirteenth District Court of Appeals, appointed by Governor Ann Richards in 1993. Her term expired on December 31, 2010.

Judge Yañez received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas-Pan American in 1970 and taught in an elementary classroom before attending Texas Southern University School of Law, where she obtained her J.D. in 1976. Yañez also holds a Master of Law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, 1998.

During law school, Yañez served as a legal intern for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago (LAF), beginning work on LAF's Migrant Project, which focused on assisting farm workers with wage, hour, and working conditions claims. After completing her law degree, Yañez returned to LAF to begin her legal career, representing clients on a pro bono basis.

Yañez next worked for Texas Rural Legal Aid (TRLA), a federally-funded organization, assisting economically disadvantaged clients. During this time Yañez was part of a legal team that successfully argued for the right of all children to a public school education before the United States Supreme Court.

In private practice Yañez represented clients in immigration, family and federal criminal cases, eventually becoming the first female partner in the law firm of Weich and Black in Brownsville (now Roerig, Oliveira & Fisher, LLP). Yañez would later move to Chicago, where she served as Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Among other issues, Yañez focused on voting rights issues, becoming part of an award-winning legal team she partially credits for the election of the first Latino elected to Congress from the Midwest.

Yañez was next appointed as a Clinical Instructor at the Harvard School of Law, where she taught an Immigration Clinic composed of international students. She would leave Harvard for Washington, D.C., being appointed to newly-elected President Bill Clinton's Immigration Transition Team.

In 1993, Governor Ann Richards appointed Yañez to the 13th Court of Appeals. She was the first woman to serve on this court and the first Latina to be appointed to the Texas appellate court system.