Janice Marie Holder (born August 29, 1949) is an American judge who served as a circuit court judge for Tennessee's Division II Circuit Court in the 30th district, served as the third woman justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1996 until 2014, and was the first female Chief Justice of Tennessee on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 2008 until 2010.
Education Janice M. Holder grew up in Robinson Township outside of McDonald, PA. She attended McDonald Elementary. She walked to school every day. As a child, she played tennis, roller skated, played basketball, and played piano. She was an only child. Holder's mother, a singer, and father, a drummer, met in a big band. Her childhood home was a house that her parents bought from her great-grandmother. Her father worked as a rigger in a steel mill. Holder attended Fort Cherry High School in McDonald, PA.
Holder, a native of McDonald, Pennsylvania, attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania from 1967 to 1968.Holder, Janice M. “Janice M. Holder C.V.” Tennessee Mediators, 2018. https://www.nadn.org/pdf/Janice-Holder.pdf. She played basketball in college. In 1968, Holder transferred to University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. She pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma, an international women's sorority in college. Over the summer in 1970, Holder studied abroad for a term at the University of Paris with the highest honors. Holder's interest in French stemmed from her grandmother who was born in France until she moved to Pennsylvania at age eight. She graduated in 1971 summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science and as a University Scholar from the University of Pittsburgh.
Her original career plan was to research psychology, but she was rejected by the graduate schools she applied to for a master's in psychology. After this rejection, Holder spent a year searching for a new career path applying to be a flight attendant at Pan Am Airways, a law school, a paralegal school, and a French graduate school. She was accepted to each of these opportunities, and Holder chose to pursue law school. Holder began at Duquesne University School of Law in autumn of 1972. In law school, Holder enjoyed tort law, contract law, and estates and trust law. Duquesne University is where Holder attended law school and received her Juris Doctor. Over the summer at law school, Holder worked with a federal magistrate working on pro se petitions in an internship. From 1973 to 1975, Holder was on the Duquesne Law Review, and served as the Recent Decisions Editor from 1974 until 1975. Holder was a first generation lawyer in her family.
Early career After law school at Duquesne University, Holder started her legal career in a clerkship for Chief Judge Herbert P. Sorg on the United States District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania. Chief Judge Herbert P. Sorg inspired Holder to become a judge eventually after being a lawyer. In her clerkship, Holder was able to absorb everything about being in the courtroom as a judge regarding the procedure and the decorum. In 1979, she finished her job as a judicial clerk and made her way in the private practice of law in Pittsburgh. In the 1980s, Holder moved to Memphis, TN. Until 1990, Holder worked as a private practice lawyer in Memphis. She served as an editor of the Memphis Bar Forum. Holder was also a chair on the Lawyers Helping Lawyers Committee. Holder sat on the board of directors for the Memphis Bar Association.
After her two year law clerkship, Holder accepted a position at a two-person law firm, Catalano & Catalano, in Pittsburgh as an associate attorney. Her first case was a jury trial in federal court. It was a labor management relation case section 301 about fair representation, and the firm represented the plaintiff. Holder was getting frostbite on a regular basis in Pittsburgh, and this prompted her to move south to Memphis, TN. In Memphis, Holder had a difficult time getting an interview for a job. Holder felt that because the "first wave of women" were already hired, no other law firms were actively hiring women. She found employment in Memphis at the law firm Holt, Bachelor, Spicer, and Rhine as an attorney for aviation law. The firm hired Holder to represent a plaintiff in the Memphis Mid-Air Collision, a liability case concerning an airplane collision. After one year, defense law became Holder's main practice. She went to general session court and the Court of Criminal Appeals. She argued and wrote the brief for a case before the Tennessee Supreme Court.
After working at the Bachelor firm, Holder opened a private practice of law as a solo practitioner. She went back and forth between law firms and private practice before running as a judge for the Circuit Court. As a solo practitioner, Holder mainly handled domestic relation cases. Having a knowledge of domestic relation cases helped Holder as a judge in the Division II Circuit Court. As an aspiring lawyer in Memphis, Holder joined the Memphis Bar Association. Holder was the editor for the Memphis Bar Journal.
Circuit Court In 1990, Janice M. Holder was elected as on the 30th Circuit Court as a judge. In Tennessee, circuit courts are under general jurisdiction meaning they hear both civil and criminal cases as well as appeals. Circuit courts hear cases from the city, juvenile, municipal, and general sessions courts. Janice M. Holder wanted to become a judge because the job allowed her to use her knowledge from trials. Holder ran for the open seat on the bench even though she did not have any political connections in Memphis. She won the election in 1990 to be a judge on the 30th Circuit Court.
As a judge on the circuit court, Holder established an alternative dispute resolution project. This leading project in Shelby County was intended to identify the usefulness of mediation, early neutral evaluation, and arbitration.Inns of Court, “Alternate Dispute Resolution Biography: Janice M. Holder.” While serving on the 30th Circuit Court as a judge, Judge Holder received several distinctions for her outstanding work. In 1990, she was selected for the Memphis Bar Association Sam A Mayr Award due to her advocacy and service to the legal profession and broader community. In 1992, Judge Holder received the Chancellor Charles A. Rond Award as an Outstanding Jurist on behalf of the Memphis Bar Association. The Tennessee Supreme Court appointed Judge Holder as the coordinating judge for breast implant cases in West Tennessee in 1993. Judge Holder was a member of the National Conference of Chief Justices Mass Tort Litigation Committee in 1996. Selected for the subcommittee chair, Judge Holder also was a member of the Silicone Gel Breast Implant Subcommittee in 1996.
Because Circuit Court judges have to be re-elected continually, Holder feared that her dream job as a judge was insecure. Judge Holder was a special justice during the November 1994 session on the Tennessee Supreme Court. She applied to become a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court which has retention elections less frequently.
Judicial career In 1990, Holder was elected to the position of Circuit Court Judge, Division II, Thirtieth Judicial District. This district consists of Shelby County, Tennessee, and Division II deals primarily with civil cases. In 1996 she was one of three nominees for a vacancy on the Tennessee Supreme Court submitted to then-Governor of Tennessee Don Sundquist under the Tennessee Plan; she was the person subsequently selected by him, and her service on the Supreme Court began in December 1996. In August 1998, having been recommended for retention under the process outlined in the Tennessee Plan, she was approved by the voters of the state for a full eight-year term. In August 2006, having again been recommended for another eight-year term, she was again approved by the voters with a majority exceeding 75% and receiving a majority of affirmative votes in each of the state's 95 counties.August 3, 2006 Judicial Retention Election Results On June 26, 2013 Holder announced that she would not seek retention in August 2014 and would retire when her term ended.
Tennessee Supreme Court In 1996, Janice M. Holder was appointed as a Justice by Governor Sundquist to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Justice Holder served from 1996 until 2014 on the Tennessee Supreme Court. From 2008 until 2014, Holder was the Chief Justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Chief Justice Holder was the first woman in Tennessee to be a Chief Justice. In accordance with the Tennessee Plan, Justice Holder went up for retention election in 1998 and 2006. In both elections Holder was retained by state voters. Justice Holder authored over 335 court opinions for the Tennessee Supreme Court. Justice Holder created the Access for Justice Commission while on the bench.
Appointment
Political climate Janice M. Holder applied for the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1994 when Justice John Byers announced his retirement, but she did not get the spot on the bench. The Tennessee Plan came into effect when the search for a new justice commenced. There was also litigation over the constitutionality and procedures of the Tennessee Plan during the search for a new justice. These legal challenges reviewed the evaluation process for judges. A Special Supreme Court was appointed to rule on the Tennessee Plan, making rulings leading up to the election. Unaware that Tennessee Plan had already been implemented by the Special Supreme Court, Governor McWherter announced his appointment of Penny J. White to the bench. Other potential justices, including Holder, still applied for the position as a Supreme Court justices so that the process of the new Tennessee Plan could be followed through. Holder knew White would get the appointment, but she wanted to apply because to go through the application process under the Tennessee Plan to help her if she were to apply later in life.
Janice M. Holder was appointed by Governor Don Sundquist in 1996 to the Tennessee Supreme Court. When Holder was appointed under the Tennessee Plan, judicial selection was executed through merit selection in which the governor picked from three nominees chosen by the nominating commission. Holder was preceded by Justice Penny J. White.Behm, Margaret and Henry, Candi. “Judicial Selection In Tennessee: Deciding ’The Decider.” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY, 2014. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2480621. Penny J. White was removed from the bench in her retention election due to a conservative campaign against her.Dieter, R.C. “Killing for Votes: The Dangers of Politicizing the Death Penalty Process.” Death Penalty Information Center, October 18, 1996. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/in-depth/killing-for-votes-the-dangers-of-politicizing-the-death-penalty-processs.
In light of the capital punishment campaign against White, Republican Governor Don Sundquist publicly promised before the retention election that he would not appoint someone to the judiciary unless he was sure that the nominee supported the death penalty. When Governor Sundquist appointed Justice Holder, the extremely politicized retention election of Justice White had left the political climate of the judiciary marked by one's stance on capital punishment.Carelli, Richard. “Judge Pays Price of Her Convictions.” Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1996, sec. World & Nation. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-01-mn-4584-story.html. Justice Holder is regarded as a judge with a slight conservative ideological leaning. In her oral history, Holder states that White's loss was felt by many women across the state, and that Holder now had the pressure of being the only woman on the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Legal battle