Judge Jacqueline Phelps Duncan

Judge Jacqueline Phelps Duncan served as a Judge of the District Court from 1985 to 2009. During her career, she has also served as a prosecutor, teacher, poverty lawyer, and private attorney. Her trial dockets were varied and included many kinds of cases. She conducted settlement conferences in the counties of her judicial district and in other counties outside that district.

She served many years on the Executive Board of the Oklahoma Judicial Conference, including two consecutive years as President. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Trial Judges Association.

She was honored by the Governor for three years of volunteer work writing opinions for the Court of Criminal Appeals Emergency Appellate Panel.
 
She was appointed by the Supreme Court in early 1991 to work on the Uniform Civil Jury Instructions Committee.

She served on the Time Standards Committee of the Supreme Court and the Judges Helping Judges Committee of the Judicial Conference.

She served on the Bench and Bar, Unauthorized Practice of Law, Criminal Law, Law-Related Education,Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Women In Law Committees of the Oklahoma Bar Association.

She spoke at a 2002 seminar for trial judges on "Best Practices" and at the 2001 Sovereignty Symposium on Native American ways of jurisprudence and cooperation between tribal and state courts.

She spoke at the Oklahoma 1998 Winter Judicial Conference on the topic of settlement conferences and presented a paper ("Caucusing to Consensus") on that topic at an earlier judicial conference. She participated as a speaking panelist or moderator at other judicial conferences on other topics, such as the Youthful Offender Act.

She spoke at other seminars on topics dealing with family law, criminal justice, and alternate dispute resolution topics, including the Oklahoma Juvenile Justice Conference in August, 2000; a Community Conference on Family Mediation on April 1, 1998,sponsored by Oklahoma City University School of Law and the Supreme Court of Oklahoma; a Higher Education and Criminal Justice Conference in January 1997 at Southwestern Oklahoma State University; and the 1997 annual meeting of the Oklahoma Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

In areas affecting families and children, she helped train mediators  for family law cases with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Office of the Supreme Court since 1996,and she helped start a Parent-Teen Mediation Project in Custer County. She was instrumental in starting  a cooperative parenting class for divorcing parents and requiring their attendance. She hosted Networking Conferences for area service providers to families and children. She helped establish a Graduated Sanctions Program in the area of juvenile delinquency. She hosted a Youth Summit in May 2000, for the Weatherford Alternative School, focusing on skills such as decision-making and communication.

In December 1994, she served as an adjunct faculty member at the first Oklahoma Judicial Education Academy at the Nigh Institute of State Government at the University of Central Oklahoma.  She presented twice at the New Judges

Academies sponsored by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.  She helped with the O.U. College of Law Trial Advocacy School in 1999 and 2000.

Having completed classwork there on several occasions, she spent three weeks in the spring of 1994 at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, as a faculty advisor for the General Jurisdiction class.

She was appointed in 1992 to the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women and was a presenter at the 1993 Oklahoma Women's Summit. She was an ex-officio member of the Oklahoma League of Women Voter's Judicial Study Committee, which   helped  compile  A    Resource   Guide   to   Oklahoma    Courts, released in 1994.

She is a graduate of the '90 - '91 (Class IV) of Leadership Oklahoma, Inc., and she has held office on various state and local boards, including the American Heart Association, Kiwanis International, the American Association of University Women, the Western Plains Library System, and the Women's Foundation of Oklahoma.

She is a 1970 graduate of Alva High School and was honored to deliver the 1993 commencement address at her alma mater. During high school, she earned recognition as a member of the National Honor Society and the Oklahoma Honor Society. She was Co-Editor of the Scarab (school newspaper), active in Science Club and Spanish Club, and sang with the Stardusters.

She received a "Humanitarian of the Year" award in 1989 from Action Associates in Clinton, a shelter for victims of domestic violence, and the "Roots and Wings" award from the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce. She has been the keynote speaker at two U.S. citizenship induction ceremonies.

During her professional career, she attended many continuing education seminars, including the 1982 Negotiation Mediation Skills Training at the National Public Law Training Center in Washington, D.C., mediation trainings sponsored by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Office of the Oklahoma Supreme Court; and the Institute for Faculty Excellence in Judicial Education sponsored by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in  Reno,Nevada.
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She received a juris doctorate from the College of Law at the University of Oklahoma. She majored in mathematics and English at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and obtained teaching certificates in both areas.

She has lived in Weatherford, Oklahoma for almost 42 years. Her husband, David, is a practicing lawyer there. Among her favorites in life are her family and friends, supporting animal rescues, reading every kind of book, and encouraging or maybe even inspiring others.