Skip to content
Hon. Justice Christine M. Durham

Hon. Justice Christine M. Durham

Former Utah Supreme Court

Justice Christine Durham served as a justice of the Utah Supreme Court from 1982 to 2017 and served as Chief Justice from 2002 to 2012. She received her A.B. from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Duke University, where she is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees. She is the Past-President of the Conference of Chief Justices of the United States, and also the past-chair of the American Bar Association’s Council on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the entity that accredits American law schools. Justice Durham has been active in judicial education, and was a founder of the Leadership Institute in Judicial Education. She helped create and lead the Utah Coalition for Civic Character and Service Education and served on the Utah Commission on Civic Education.

She has been recognized nationally for her work in judicial education and efforts to improve the administration of justice. In 2007 she received the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence; in 2008 she received the “Transparent Courthouse” Award for contributions to judicial accountability and administration from the Institute for the Advancement of the Legal System. In September 2012, Justice Durham received the Eighth Annual Dwight D. Opperman Award for Judicial Excellence from the American Judicature Society.

Justice Durham recently served on the ABA’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education, and is currently serving as a member of the Advisory Board for the Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers Project of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, and of the Board of Directors for University of the People, an accredited tuition-free online global university (www.UoPeople.edu).