Durham State’s First Female Chief Justice

From statehood until 1983, the state Supreme Court was strictly a men’s club. That’s still more or less true. Of the 83 justices who have sat or are sitting on the high court, only three have been women.

Today, one of those women, Barbara Durham, will make history. he will become the state’s first female chief justice.

The chief justice presides at all court sessions, among other duties. Durham says she’s excited about becoming the “chief” but doesn’t think it’s any great accomplishment.

“There are so many women in the judiciary that’s it’s no big deal,” Durham says. She adds that being named chief justice is just a case of “being in the right place at the right time.”

She was referring to the fact that the chief justice is the senior of the next three justices up for election. Thus the leadership of the ninemember Supreme Court changes every two years.

But the court is assured of at least four years with a woman as chief. Justice Barbara Madsen will succeed Durham in 1997.

The 1:30 p.m. ceremony today also will include inauguration of newly elected justices Garry L. Alexander and Phil Talmadge. Alexander, 58, a former chief judge of Division II of the Court of Appeals, and Talmadge, 42, a state senator from King County, were elected to six-year terms in November.

Justice Richard Guy, 52, a former Spokane County Superior Court judge, will be inaugurated to a new six-year term.

The brightest light will shine on Durham, who has a string of “firsts” to her credit.

She has served on the Mercer Island District Court, the King County Superior Court and the Court of Appeals. When she was appointed to the high court in 1985 to succeed Carolyn Dimmick, the first woman justice, Durham became the first justice to have served at all four court levels. Durham also was the first woman to serve as an Appeals Court chief judge.

Durham, 52, says she hopes to institute changes in Supreme Court procedures.

Durham is married to physician Charles Divelbiss and lives in Seattle. She’s an Anacortes native who went to high school on Vashon Island, attended college at Gonzaga and Georgetown universities and Stanford School of Law. She was a King Country deputy prosecutor from 1968 to 1970 and was in private practice from 1976 to 1979.