Bench & Bar September/October 2026

BAR NEWS

JUSTICE Portrait of a WILLIAM “BILL” GRAVES SHARES HISTORY, DISCUSSES COURT UNIFICATION BY JAMIE NEAL , ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS

W illiam “Bill” Graves needed some persuading before he agreed to have his portrait painted. Now, the 90-year-old former Supreme Court justice sees it as a testimony to his place in the common wealth’s history. “I’m part of Kentucky history and that’s evi dence of it,” he said. The Supreme Court of Kentucky unveiled the portrait in February at the Adminis trative Office of the Courts in Frankfort. Dignitaries, court personnel, family and friends gave Justice Graves a standing ova tion, honoring his more than 20 years on the bench. The tribute came as the Kentucky Judicial Branch commemorates 50 years of a unified court system. Justice Graves experienced the courts before and after that transforma tion as an attorney in private practice, a law clerk to Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge James B. Milliken, justice of the peace, trial commissioner for two local courts, judge and justice. Asked about his legacy, Chief Justice of the Commonwealth Debra Hembree Lambert

said, “Over the course of his service on this court, he has helped

shape our jurisprudence in ways that will outlast any one case: insisting on clarity of reasoning, fidelity to precedent and careful attention to the practical consequences of our decisions.” Justice Graves, the commonwealth’s oldest former Supreme Court justice, was born and raised in Paducah. He was elected to serve Western Kentucky on the state’s high est court from 1995 to 2006 after his time as a district and circuit judge in McCracken County. When unification began, he was 10 years into private practice. Voters approved the Judicial Article cre ating Kentucky’s modern, statewide court system in 1975, and it took effect in 1976. Before then, more than 300 local courts had overlapping responsibilities and vary ing procedures. Unification was designed to provide fair and consistent administration of justice across Kentucky. Learn more at https://kcoj.info/KCOJ50th.

Justice Graves called the earlier system “dis jointed” and the transition “wonderful.” Before unification, the Court of Appeals was Kentucky’s only appellate court and carried the state’s entire appellate caseload. The Judicial Article created a Supreme Court and an intermediate Court of Appeals, dividing appellate responsibilities. “It was almost miraculous,” he said. “For one thing, when I finished law school, you could appeal; everybody had the right to appeal to the Court of Appeals, which meant there was a tremendous backlog.” He went on to say, “Back then, we did not have the internet, and you had to do every thing by U.S. mail. The new court system is very efficient and less costly. Of course, at the lower levels … before, you had police courts, quarterly courts with conflict ing jurisdictions and a lot of the people were not lawyers, and it’s just been a big improvement.”

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