Utah is losing a judicial powerhouse with the retirement of Justice Christine M. Durham on Nov. 16. She is the state’s longest-serving judge, was the first female state court trial judge, the first, and only currently serving, woman on the Utah Supreme Court, the first female chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court and generally an icon in Utah’s legal field. In our own words, Durham is the Utah legal community’s Mother Theresa.
Durham has been a trailblazer for decades. We look forward to future trails she will surely blaze.
Gov. Gary Herbert has chosen to replace Durham with an equally impressive state court judge, Paige Petersen.
Judge Petersen perfectly combines a rural Utah upbringing with a sophisticated and complex legal practice. Originally from Emery County, Petersen is a graduate of Carbon High School, the University of Utah and Yale Law School. She has worked in a large New York City law firm, as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. In 2012 she returned to Utah to prosecute violent crimes in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Herbert appointed Petersen a state court judge in 2015.
Of Petersen, Herbert said she has “great intellectual firepower.”
During Petersen’s nomination announcement, Herbert noted that the pool of applicants for Utah’s Supreme Court was particularly qualified. That’s good to hear. The nominating commission nominated seven people. Four were women. Two candidates are current female judges on Utah’s Court of Appeals, and the other female nominee is the city attorney for Salt Lake City.
It is rare to see a majority of women in a nominee group, partly from a dearth of female applicants. Current mentoring programs among women lawyers in Utah are trying to change that pattern and encourage women to apply for the judiciary. It seems to be working.
Despite the fact that approximately 25 percent of Utah’s lawyers are women, only 16 percent of Utah’s state district court judges are female. Women make up only 20 percent of district court judges on Utah’s federal bench. Utah’s Court of Appeals is the only Utah court comprised of a majority of women, with four women and three men.
We cannot stress enough what a difference judicial diversity makes.
With a bench of five judges, and no other woman after Durham retires, we applaud the nominating commission for nominating qualified individuals for the spot, including a majority of women. Herbert did his job and chose well.
The Senate should now do its job and confirm Petersen to the Utah Supreme Court.
