Jenny Rivera

Jenny Rivera (born December 1960) is a judge on the New York Court of Appeals. A Democrat, Rivera was appointed to the court by Andrew Cuomo in 2013 for a 14-year term. Her current term expires in 2027. She is the second Hispanic woman to serve on New York's highest court, after Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick. Education Rivera was born in December 1960 in New York City. She graduated from Princeton University in 1982. She earned her Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law three years later, and a Master of Laws from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. Legal experience After obtaining her Juris Doctor in 1985, Rivera spent a year clerking at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's Pro Se Law Clerk's office. She spent the next year as a staff attorney for the New York City Legal Aid Society in the Homeless Family Rights Project before joining the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she remained as associate counsel until 1992. In 1992, Rivera served as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Division of Human Rights. In 1993, after completing her LL.M., Rivera served as a law clerk to then-U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Southern District of New York; Sotomayor was later elevated to the Second Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Following the completion of that clerkship, Rivera taught for three years at Suffolk University Law School.