Oklahoma Bar Journal
The Back Page | A Courthouse Memoir
By Travis Pickens
I’ve been at the same corner since I was finished in 1937 as a Public Works Administration project. I have a light gray exterior of Indiana limestone and concrete, with steep dark granite steps leading up to the main doors. Inside, there are rich marbles and cast plaster, and the courtroom doors and trim are made with solid black walnut. I’ve had a few changes over time. We had to move the entrances and add metal detectors. My snack bar was taken out a few years ago, and it’s just vending machines now. Some of my elegance was lost, but I can still turn heads with my art deco design, fixtures, ornate touches and murals. A courthouse has a unique place – it’s meant to look imposing and beautiful at the same time. But the most interesting thing to me has been what has happened inside my walls. The same story can probably be told in other courthouses across our state.
Many more women now use my courtrooms as lawyers and judges than in the old days, and the number is still trending up. I never saw that gender made a difference in either arguments or verdicts. The obstacles must have been man-made.
Lawyers act the same. The older lawyers wander around my halls with files under their arms, but they often spend time talking to other lawyers or the judges’ bailiffs. A few may not be as busy as they used to be but still like to have somewhere important to go and things to do as if they were. I don’t blame them for that. The younger lawyers walk faster and talk faster, and their eyes are still bright with nervous energy and excitement. Some use laptops or iPads, but most still lug around manilla files in brown folders or cardboard boxes and three-ring binders. Lawyers have always loved three-ring binders.
Jurors haven’t changed either. A few are glad to be here, excited to be immersed in the drama. Of course, there are others who tried mightily to avoid serving and are especially frustrated if they get selected for a long trial. Most of them just want to do their duty in the shortest possible time and leave.
Spectators still come through my doors daily. I call some of them “frequent flyers.” They want to see if life will imitate television or a movie they’ve seen. They hope to feel the same dramatic atmospherics; sometimes they get that, but usually not. It may just be people fighting over what seems like relatively little. But the stakes may be high – a person’s life savings or freedom or a company’s survival. The criminal cases can be more interesting to watch because they’re more like what they’ve seen or read about, and the lawyers can be more theatrical.
I’ve been here every day for almost 90 years, and what I’ve seen are well-educated and honest women and men working hard and doing their best to keep the truth and seek a just result. Important issues are being resolved, and the process that keeps order in a civilized society is grinding away. It may not always be newsworthy or worth millions of dollars or celebrities fighting, but it’s important to the people involved. It could change or even save their lives. And sometimes, the result affects the rest of us.
This is a special place where the truth is everyone’s duty, and justice for all is everyone’s goal. I hope it always will be.
Mr. Pickens is an ethics and civil litigation lawyer practicing in Oklahoma City.
Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal – OBJ 96 No. 2 (February 2025)
Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.