Chief Justice Carolyn Wright-Sanders is an American lawyer, jurist and a former Chief Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, serving in that position from November 17, 2009 to December 31, 2018. She was born in Houston, Texas to a career military family and attended Howard University School of Law. After receiving her J.D. degree, she founded her own law firm in Texas. In 1983, she became an associate judge in the family law courts. Two years later, she ran for a family district bench and became the first African-American woman in Dallas to win a county-wide election. She was appointed to to the Fifth Court of Appeals as an associate justice in 1995, and sworn in as chief justice in 2010. She became the first African American to become chief justice of any intermediate appellate court in Texas.