politics
First woman confirmed as federal judge in Massachusetts dies at 94
Rya W. Zobel, who became the first woman nominated and confirmed to the federal bench in Massachusetts in 1979, died Saturday at her Charlestown home. Court officials announced the death and noted her role in naturalization ceremonies and her earlier career milestones.
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Rya W. Zobel, the first woman nominated and confirmed as a federal judge in Massachusetts, died Saturday at her Charlestown home at age 94, the U.S. District Court announced. Born Rya Solveig Weickert on Dec. 18, 1931, in Zwickau, Germany, she survived the rise of Nazism before Soviet soldiers took her father from the family home when she was 13.
She never saw him again, and her mother spent years in Soviet prisons and prison camps. She and her brother arrived in the United States as immigrants with limited English. She later graduated from Radcliffe College and Harvard Law School.
Career milestones Zobel became the first woman elected partner at the firm then known as Goodwin, Procter & Hoar. The Senate confirmed her as a federal judge in 1979. She assumed senior status in 2014. In 2020 she became the first woman to receive the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award.
Tributes from colleagues "Judge Zobel was a role model for all young female litigators hoping someday to become federal judges," former chief judge Patti B. Saris said in 2013. "On the 250th anniversary of our country's founding, this Commonwealth has lost one of its true patriots, the Honorable Rya W.
Zobel," Chief Judge Denise J. Casper said in a court statement. Court officials said Zobel took pride in presiding over naturalization ceremonies for new citizens. Information about a memorial service was not immediately available.
