The Hon. Nancy Ann Holman '56
In 1970, Washington State Governor Daniel Evans appointed Nancy Ann
Holman '56 to a seat on the King County Superior Court, making her the
first woman in the state to hold a superior court judicial assignment. The
appointment represented one of the many firsts Judge Holman has set in
nearly 40 years as a lawyer, jurist and educator.
A native of Massachusetts, Judge Holman earned an A.B. magna cum
laude in philosophy from Wheaton College in 1956, and was elected to Phi
Beta Kappa, the national honor society. She has remained an active member
of the college community, serving as a member of the college's Board of
Trustees, participating in alumnae/i activities and serving as a mentor to
Wheaton students.
Judge Holman earned a J.D. from Boston College, where she graduated
in the top five percent of her class and was a founding member of the
Boston College Commercial and Industrial Law Review as well as a
member of the editorial board of the Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law.
She also studied as a special student at the Harvard Law School in Soviet
Law and in the Middlebury College Russian Language and Literature
Program.
The future jurist was first admitted to the bar in Massachusetts and
practiced law in Boston for two years before moving to Seattle. Her trial
practice in Seattle focused on commercial law and construction and
products liability with Elliot, Lee, Carney and Smart. Her extensive
litigation experience included the defense of multi-million personal
injury cases.
Since her assignment to the King County Superior Court, Judge
Holman has built a reputation as a vigorous advocate of enlightened
approaches to the resolution of issues in family law cases. She has been
active in the American Association of Family Conciliation Courts since
1973 and served as its president in 1981. She was a founding judge of the
Superior Court Family Law Department in 1981; chaired the Juvenile,
Family Law and Mental Illness Committee for five years; and has been the
author of several law review articles on the use of arbitration in
domestic relations cases.
Other firsts include her appointment as the first woman officer of
the Washington State Superior Court Judges Association, the first woman
to sit on the King County Law Library Board, and the first woman to sit
(pro tem) on the Washington State Supreme Court.
Judge Holman has also been actively involved in legal education,
having taught at the University of Puget Sound Law School and at the
National College of the State Judiciary at the University of Nevada at
Reno. She has taught seminars at Boston College, presided as a judge in
the semi-finals of the Ames Competition at Harvard, and served on the
selection committee of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust.
A resident of the Seattle-area, Judge Holman is married and has
three children.
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