Courts: the 344 Justices of the 50 State Supreme Courts
The 'Gavel Gap': Representation in State Supreme Courts
To date, 41 of the 50 states have had one or more women serve as Chief Justice of its State Supreme Court. Arizona led the nation with a female chief justice – Lorna Lockwood – in 1965, followed by North Carolina in 1975.
In 2022, there are 18 women Chief Justices of the 50 State Supreme Courts, at 36%.
Chief Justices of State Supreme Courts: 18 out of 50 = 36%
According to the Brennan Center, in these same State Supreme Courts, women hold 39% of court seats, up from 36% in 2019. In 12 states, there is only one woman on the State Supreme Court bench. (Notably, just 17% of state high court justices are Black, Latino, AAPI, or Native American, while people of color make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population).
According to the National Association of Women Judges, in partnership with Forster-Long, LLC, this is the state of The American Bench in 2018:
State Court Judges are 33% female (5,947 women out of 17,840 total)
5947 out of 17840 = 33%
These State Court Judges include:
State Limited & Special Jurisdiction Courts (35%: 1,750 women out of 4,941 total)
State General Jurisdiction Courts (32%: 3,714 women out of 11,569 total)
State Intermediate Appellate Jurisdiction Courts (37%: 365 women out of 976 total)
State Final Appellate Jurisdiction Courts (33%: 118 women out of 354 total).
The Report The American Bench 2019 has a useful state-by-state interactive map of the gender of the judiciary.
The American Constitution Society calls for “the courts [to be] representative of the people whom they serve. We call this disparity The Gavel Gap.”
The ACS further assigns a “Gavel Gap Score” to each state, and to the US as a whole. The 2022 score is -39. As the ACS states, “Women are half the population – but less than a third of state judges. It’s time to close #GavelGap.”
More information can be found at: www.gavelgap.org or www.acslaw.org/analysis/reports/gavel-gap
What will it take for women to get into the Power Percentage of the State Courts of the United States?