In the Beginning
by Judge Judith M. Billings
It was exciting and daunting to be a founding member of the Utah Court of Appeals in 1987. I knew a few members of the court but had not met others. We had been given no internal procedures and faced the challenge of creating a new appellate court that could assist the Utah Supreme Court. From the outset, we were all dedicated to becoming a hardworking, efficient and, most importantly, a collegial court. I personally treasure my association with the founding members of the court and those who subsequently joined us.
One of my favorite recollections is our decision as to how many cases we judges would consider each month and how many opinions we would author. We inherited an approximately five hundred case backlog that had accumulated at the Supreme Court, so we thought more was better. We each had only one law clerk. We had no experience at appellate judging. Nevertheless, we naively decided that each judge would hear eighteen cases and author six opinions each month. Within the first year it became apparent that we had overestimated our abilities and underestimated the challenges of appellate work. We soon discovered that we simply were moving the “backlog” from “at issue” to “under advisement” – a less than desirable situation. Fortunately, we had agreed from the beginning that we would not have “rules” at the court but only “norms” that could easily be changed. We thus modified our workload. However, in just over a year, we had eliminated our five-hundred-case backlog and were dealing with newly filed cases.
It seems impossible that I have been with the Court of Appeals for twenty years. Time flies when you are having fun.