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Just a decade after graduating from law school, Judith Billings was selected as one of seven judges to sit on the Utah Court of Appeals when it was created almost 40 years ago. She was one of two women in the inaugural class of appellate judges. Billings died earlier this month at 82 years old.
The other woman who sat with her on the appellate court, Judge Pamela Greenwood, retired alongside Billings in 2009. But their friendship started before and continued after the pair’s time next to each other on the bench. “There weren’t too many women lawyers around at the time, so we kind of all knew each other,” Greenwood said.
“I think I graduated before she did from law school, but we were about the same age.” Billings’ titles before becoming a lawyer were high school teacher and stay-at-home mother. When her first husband died, she became exasperated with the competency of the attorneys helping her sort out legal matters, and decided to enter the legal field herself.
Billings was among the first women to be named district court judges in Utah at a time when less than 10% of lawyers nationwide were women. The late judge developed a reputation for giving a hand up to the women who came after her. “She was very encouraging to other women joining the profession,” Greenwood said.
“We all had law clerks over the years, and a good number of hers were women who she encouraged and helped them find their way in the profession.” One former clerk, commenting on the obituary posted by Billings’ family, wrote that Billings’ “belief in me gave me courage to pursue professional opportunities I would have considered beyond my reach.” Although classes entering the University of Utah’s law school in recent years have evolved to include majority numbers of women, Utah Court of Appeals Judge Gregory Orme — a current member of the court who was appointed with its initial judges — pointed out that Billings and Greenwood were pioneers, of sorts, who helped to grow the relative handful of women in the field.
When then-Gov. Norman Bangerter nominated two women to sit on the appeals court, Orme said it was “surprising” to some in the Utah State Bar. “Both of them did make it their mission, a bit, to make sure that women coming up through the profession were appropriately mentored and given good role models,” Orme said.
(The Salt Lake Tribune) The Judges of Utah Court of Appeals, left to right, Judith Billings, William Thorne, Pamela Greenwood, James Davis, Gregory Orme, Russell Bench and Norman Jackson, sit around a table at Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City, seen here in a file photo from April 9, 2002. To that end, both Orme and Greenwood said Billings was among the most organized and prepared on the court, doing her research before oral arguments and quickly drafting opinions for her colleagues to review.
What most distinguished Billings from other appellate judges he’s served with, Orme said, is “the amount of time, effort, energy and thought that she gave to our cases even before they had been argued.” She told the University of Utah’s law school in 2022 that serving on the appeals court was “my best job ever.” After retirement, Billings became an adjunct professor there, teaching judicial process.
Billings grew her network and offered mentorship on a national level, too, becoming president of the National Association of Women Judges and chairing the Appellate Judges Conference of the American Bar Association. “Up until a very few years ago,” Orme recollected, “when I would go to conferences out of state or talk to judges from other states, the most common name that would come up was, ‘Well, you must be acquainted with my friend Judge Billings.’”.
