Cynthia D. Kinser

Who is Cynthia D. Kinser?

Cynthia Dinah Kinser is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia who was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to her first 12-year term in 1998 after being appointed by the governor to fill a vacancy in 1997. Justice Kinser was elected to a second 12-year term during the 2010 session of the General Assembly. Under current law, Justice Kinser will be required to retire or take senior status in January 2022, as this date coincides with the expiration of her current term, she will not be eligible for reappointment unless the current mandatory retirement age is increased or eliminated. Justice Kinser recently became Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court on February 1, 2011. She is the first woman to hold the office of Chief Justice on the Court.

Justice Kinser received her bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Tennessee in 1974, and her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1977. Prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court by then-Governor George Felix Allen, Kinser served, along with Allen, as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Glen M. Williams, Western District of Virginia from 1977 to 1978. Allen and Kinser had also been law school classmates. She then entered lawyer private practice from 1978 to 1979 and served as Commonwealth's Attorney for Lee County, Virginia from 1980 to 1984. She returned to private practice from 1984 to 1990. She served as a U.S. magistrate judge, Western District of Virginia from 1990 to 1997. She succeeded Justice Roscoe B. Stephenson, Jr..