Rose Vela

Rose Vela is a retired Texas State District Judge and Texas Appellate Justice who currently resides in Brownsville, Texas and Washington, D.C. She was born at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in a military family. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) and a J.D. from St. Mary’s School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. After law school, Vela served as Briefing Attorney to two different Texas Courts of Appeals, and then went into private civil practice focusing on appellate cases. As a trial judge for two full four-year terms, Vela presided over thousands of complex civil and felony criminal cases and numerous jury trials. Also during her tenure as State District Judge, her colleagues elected her to serve as Nueces County Presiding Administrative Judge. In 2006, Vela won a contested general election to serve as an Appellate Justice on the 13th Court of Appeals. There, she served a six-year term in which she presided over appeals from 20 Texas counties and authored hundreds of legal opinions while working to significantly reduce the backload of that Court. Vela has been married to Filemon B. Vela, Jr., for 31 years and they have two French Bulldogs, Truman and Teddy.