M. Sue Kurita has served as a judge for over 26 years. She is a native El Pasoan and the presiding judge of El Paso County Court at Law Number Six since 1998 when the court was created.
Prior to 1998, Judge Kurita served as a Municipal for the City of El Paso for nine years, including four as Presiding Judge. Kurita currently serves as Vice-Chair on the Texas Supreme Court State Commission for Judicial Conduct and as a member of both the Grievance Oversight Committee and the Texas Center for the Judiciary Curriculum Committee.
Committed to furthering judicial education, Judge Kurita is an adjunct professor at Park University and Excelsior College. She has given the Commencement Address for both colleges and was the Excelsior College School of Public Service 2015 Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year. She was a speaker at the 2011 and 2013 National College on Judicial Conduct and Ethics.
Active in community and professional organizations, Kurita has served as boardmember of the Loretto Academy School Board; the Diocese of El Paso Board of Education; the Make a Wish Foundation; the El Paso Holocaust Museum; Judicial Section of the State Bar of Texas; and on the National Association of Women Judges. She is a member of the St. Stephen Deacon and Martyr ACTS Community Core and was elected Vice-President of the National Association for Women Judges. Kurita has served as Chair for both the New Judges Program for NAWJ and the Bar Leaders Conference. She is presently serving her second term on the State Bar Rules Committee.
Judge Kurita has earned certification in Criminal Law and Civil Law from the Texas Center for the Judiciary, Judicial College, as a spiritual companion from the Oblate School of Theology, and as a mediator and arbitrator from Mediators Without Borders in 2015.
She has been named an official U.S. delegate to the Latin America Seminar on the 1980 Hague Convention Child Abduction Treaty, a Woman Trailblazer by the El Paso Bar Association, and been awarded the inaugural Daniel H. Benson Public Service Award and the City of El Paso Conquistador Award. Judge Kurita is featured in JoAnne Gordon’s100 Happy Women at Work.