The Hon. C. Dane Nolan, a 1986 College of Law alum, was named the 2016 Judge of the Year by the Utah State Bar.
Hon. C. Dane Nolan was appointed to the Third District Juvenile Court in May 2003 by Governor Michael O. Leavitt. He serves in the Third Judicial District, which includes Salt Lake, Summit, and Tooele counties. Judge Nolan received a law degree from the University of Utah College of Law in 1986. He practiced law at the Utah Legal Clinic handling family law and civil rights cases from 1986–1989, the Utah Attorney General’s Office in the Litigation Division from 1989-1991, and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office from 1991 to 2003, primarily handling child-sexual-abuse and child-physical-abuse and adult-sexualassault prosecutions. Judge Nolan was a founding member of the Utah Minority Bar Association and served as the chair of the Judicial Conduct Commission from 2001 to 2002. He served as a member of the Utah Judicial Council from 2002 to 2003. Judge Nolan also served on the Juvenile Court Board of Judges from 2006 to 2011, and was chair from 2009 to 2010. As a judge, he has served on the Judicial Ethics Advisory Opinion Committee, the Governor’s Mental Health Initiative, the Juvenile Competency Committee, the Utah Supreme Court’s Professionalism Committee, the Standing Committee on Technology, and the Judicial Mentoring Committee. In 2015 he was recognized as Utah Board of Juvenile Justice Youth Advocate of the Year. Judge Nolan has presided over Utah’s first Juvenile Mental Health Court since 2006.