Associate Justice Denise M. Francois

The Honorable Associate Justice Denise M. Francois was first nominated in 2013 by Governor John P. DeJongh Jr. and confirmed by the 30th Legislature of the Virgin Islands to serve a 6-year term as Judge of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. She was subsequently renominated by Governor Albert A. Bryan Jr. to serve a second 6-year term as Judge of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, and unanimously confirmed by the 33rd Legislature of the Virgin Islands in 2020. Justice Francois is a graduate of the Berkshire School in Massachusetts and was among the first class of women admitted to Amherst College. She graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She returned home to the Virgin Islands where she began working at the Department of Social Welfare as an investigator in the Division of Paternity and Child Support, before serving as an economist in the Department of Commerce’s Division of Policy Planning and Research. In 1984, Justice Francois earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego School of Law and passed the California State Bar before returning home to join the law firm of Maria Tankenson Hodge, P. C. where she became a partner of the law firm of “Hodge and Francois, P.C.”. For nearly 30 years, Justice Francois practiced before the local and district courts in the territory, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and various administrative agencies within the Virgin Islands Government.