The Hon. Mary I. Yu is an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Jay Inslee on May 1, 2014, becoming the first openly LGBTQ member of the court.
Prior to her appointment, Yu sat as a judge for the King County Superior Court, a position to which she was named by former Governor Gary Locke in 2000. Before that, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff for the King County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (1999) as well as a deputy prosecuting attorney in the Criminal Division and the Civil Division.
Yu earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies from Dominican University (1979) and a master’s degree in theology from Loyola University (1989). She spent the next few years working for the Peace and Justice Office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago before completing a J.D. at Notre Dame Law School in 1993.
Her memberships have included the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission, the Board for Judicial Administration’s Public Trust & Confidence Committee, the Board of FareStart, the Advisory Board of the University of Washington School of Law’s Gates Public Service Program, and the American Law Institute.
She was named Judge of the Year by the Washington Association for Justice (2014) and the Washington Women Lawyers (2014) as well as Public Official of the Year by the Municipal League Foundation (2013).
Yu was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Chinese father and a Mexican mother. She attended St. Mary’s High School.