Judith Wheat, who has served on the bench since being elected by the General Assembly in 2019, has been tapped by her colleagues as chief judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit, which encompasses Arlington and Falls Church.
Judge Wheat was chosen to succeed William Newman Jr., who had served on the bench since 1993 and was chief judge from 2003. He retired June 30.
“Judge Wheat has been a model member of our Court since 2019 and will continue to lead with grace,” Newman said in a letter to the Arlington County Bar Association on his final day in office. “Given her legal background and familiarity with all facets of the courthouse, I have no doubt that Judge Wheat will do an outstanding job.”
While working as a courtroom clerk in the Arlington Circuit Court, Judge Wheat received her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1989. After a clerkship, she served as a partner at Venable LLP and Cacheris & Treanor. In 2009, she became a founding member of Griffith & Wheat PLLC in the District of Columbia, and also served as counsel to the clerk of the Arlington Circuit Court.
According to a biography on the court system’s Website, Judge Wheat has been active in the Arlington and Falls Church communities as a member of the Aurora House Citizens’ Advisory Committee, the Rock Spring Civic Association and what then was known as the Lee Highway Alliance.
She has also been active in the Arlington legal community, serving on the boards of the Arlington Alcohol Safety Action Program and the Walter T. McCarthy Law Library.
Judge Wheat has taught trial advocacy and deposition skills with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, is a past president of The Barristers and a member of the Lawyers Club of the District of Columbia.
Wheat was the nominee of the Arlington delegation to the General Assembly for a fourth seat on the Arlington Circuit Court, which had been returned by the legislature in 2019 after it had been eliminated six years previously.
She serves on the bench with Judges Daniel S. Fiore II, Louise DiMatteo and, succeeding Newman, Daniel Lopez. Until his election to an eight-year term by the legislature, Lopez had been a judge of the General District Court serving Arlington.
The selection of Wheat as chief judge is historic in several ways, Newman said in his letter to the Bar Association.
“Judge Wheat is the first woman to serve as chief judge of our Court. Moreover, this is the first time four chief judges of the Northern Virginia Circuit Courts are women,” he noted.
