TBA Law Blog

TBA Law Blog

Celebrating the 6 Women Who Have Served on the State's High Court

Posted by: Suzanne Robertson on Mar 15, 2021

Today the Tennessee Bar Association salutes the six women who serve and have served on the Tennessee Supreme Court: the Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey, former Justice Penny White and former Chief Justice Janice Holder, and current justices Cornelia (Connie) Clark, Sharon G. Lee and Holly Kirby. Their early career plans were not to become lawyers — they considered teaching, nursing, accounting, and becoming a Pan Am flight attendant, according to a recent panel discussion — because they said there were few to no women lawyers to serve as examples for them at that time.

Daughtrey was the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court, in 1990, following a string of “firsts,” including her unprecedented appointment to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in 1975. After the high court, she served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where she is currently a senior judge. “Prior to Judge Daughtrey’s appointment, the perspective of approximately one half of the citizens of Tennessee was not taken into account on the Tennessee Supreme Court,” Chief Justice Bivins said at the unveiling of her portrait. “She was the trailblazer to bring the perspective there that has now become commonplace on our court.”

Justice White has served as a judge at every level of the court system in Tennessee: as the first female circuit judge in the First Judicial District, the second woman to serve on the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals and the Tennessee Supreme Court. She is now UTLaw’s Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law. Justice Holder, the third woman to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court, was the first woman to serve as chief justice, a role she held 2008 – 2010. Justice Clark was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2005 and was elected to full eight-year terms in 2006 and 2014. She served as chief justice 2010-2012, becoming the second woman in Tennessee history to serve in that role. Justice Lee was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2008 and retained by the voters in 2010 and 2014. She served as chief justice from 2014 to 2016. Justice Kirby was appointed in 2014, having served for almost 19 years on the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

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