While the Court of Appeals is making progress, only two women have sat on Utah’s highest court – Christine M. Durham, retiring later this year, and Jill N. Parrish, who is now a federal district court judge. In Utah’s courts, men outnumber women 151 to 48.
Part of why the ascent of women onto the Utah judiciary has been so slow is due to an antiquated cultural prohibition on men and women socializing, even in the workplace. A recent Tribune-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll shows that men and women in Utah feel social mingling between the sexes is often inappropriate, especially evening activities.