NEWS RELEASE

The National Center for State Courts
300 Newport Avenue · Williamsburg, Virginia  23185

Contact:
Lorri Montgomery
Communications Manager
The National Center for State Courts
757.259.1525 or lmontgomery@ncsc.dni.us 

Larry and Dale Sipes Inducted 
into NCSC Warren E. Burger Society

Williamsburg, VA (Dec. 22, 2004) – The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) recently inducted Larry and Dale Sipes into the Warren E. Burger Society. The Burger Society honors individuals who have demonstrated an exemplary commitment to improving the administration of justice through extraordinary contributions of service and support to the NCSC. Larry Sipes is the former president of the NCSC and Dale Sipes was formerly with the California Administrative Office of the Courts.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Wisconsin Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, chair of the NCSC’s Board of Directors and president of the Conference of Chief Justices, November 19 inducted the Sipes and other new members into the Burger Society at the NCSC Annual Recognition Luncheon in Washington, D.C.

Larry Sipes commitment to the NCSC is longstanding. He served with distinction as NCSC president from 1990 to 1995, and previously as director of the NCSC’s West Regional Office in San Francisco.

Mrs. Sipes has made substantive, intellectual and leadership contributions to the NCSC.  She served the NCSC as an attorney in its Western Regional Office and as a consultant on a variety of projects.  

Inductees to the Burger Society are selected by a committee that is chaired by Texas attorney Charles M. Noteboom, Esq., who commissioned the original portrait of Chief Justice Burger that hangs in NCSC headquarters. Each new Burger Society member receives a limited edition print of the portrait, which is signed and numbered by the artist Fran Di Giacomo. Chief Justice Burger’s children own the first two prints and Chief Justice Rehnquist owns the last print, numbered 1986, the year Chief Justice Burger retired and Chief Justice Rehnquist took office.

The NCSC, headquartered in Williamsburg, Va., is a non-profit court reform organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice by providing leadership and service to the state courts. The NCSC, founded in 1971 by the Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, provides education, training, and technology, management, and research services to the nation’s state courts. The NCSC also is taking the lead on several key issues facing the justice system. For example, it has established a major civil justice initiative, a multi-year project that is examining best practices in civil case management and how complex litigation procedures can be improved. Other national initiatives being driven by the NCSC include judicial selection reform and increasing citizen participation in jury service.  

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