Being a judge is more than wearing the robe
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Above all, it’s Elizabeth Best’s experience that sets her apart as a Cascade County District Judge. And as someone who says she’s as old as the dinosaurs (she’s only 65, not 65 million), that experience is nothing to sneeze at.
Kentucky-born, Best has been in Great Falls since she was 4 years old. Her dad was an Army doctor who was the first board-certified OB-GYN in Montana and delivered about 7,000 babies in Great Falls.
Best’s family arrived in Montana after her grandfather was kidnapped in Detroit by a group known as “The Purple Gang.” This was during the Great Depression, but Best said the group thought all doctors must be rich even though her grandfather was working for chickens and bags of flour.
“He got himself out of that fix by tearing a prescription sheet into the words of ‘help,’ and someone found him,” Best said. “He decided that it would be safer to live somewhere else, so they moved out here sort of sight-unseen.”
Best has two adult children. She said she met her husband, Mike, in law school, and the two have practiced together their entire careers. Both went into the Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps right out of law school and served in Germany for three years.
“He recruited be because a mutual friend had told him that I had played intramural football at Bozeman,” Best said with a laugh. “So he recruited me for a coed football team, which had the noteworthy name of ‘Irreversible Brain Damage.’ ”
After JAG, the Bests returned to Great Falls, both working for a federal judge and then in private practice until Best took the bench in 2016. They raised their kids on a ranch near Eden for 21 years, staying up calving through the night, sheltering calves in the basement shower and doing legal work during the day.
In private practice, Best took trial cases in employment, wrongful discharge, civil rights and negligence. She said she did most of the Dow Corning silicone breast implant litigation cases for women in Montana.
Best’s résumé and her lifelong belief in public service made her right for the job, she said.
“It was not the desire to wear a robe, necessarily, but it was a desire to do the right thing and serve, and that’s pretty much what’s motivated me in general in terms of career decisions,” she said.
Best said she believes her challenges as a woman in a male-dominated profession are the same ones she shares with all women. She said women are required to do better to be equal.
“I’ve had experiences, especially as a young lawyer, where I would say something or make some argument which is immediately dispensed with as unimportant or lacking merit, and a male would advance the same argument either moments later or the next day and it’s seen as some sort of a revelation,” Best said.
Even now, Best said some people see her as “Judge Soft Touch” while others think she’s “Judge Cranky,” but she strives above all to be efficient and keep cases moving forward. Because both sides are under enormous strain, Best said a judge doesn’t do anyone any favors by delaying.
Being a judge is definitely not a 9-to-5 gig. Best said she’s at the office by 6 a.m. every day and works after hours every night in addition to being on call 24/7 to sign warrants for law enforcement.
“Unless I’m on the bench, I never refuse a call,” Best said. “I view my job as making sure that they don’t have to wait because I know that they’re out there trying to get their job done. And that’s something that we all signed up for.”
Best presides over adult and juvenile criminal cases, civil cases, youth in need of care, marriage dissolutions, parenting plans, initial appearances, fitness hearings, orders of protection, plus civil and criminal trials.
She also runs Veterans Treatment Court, where she’s made changes to provide for post-graduation relapse prevention and oversees a program run by veteran alumni to provide support for each other and current participants.
“That has been really gratifying in many ways,” she said. “… We’re working very hard to make sure our veterans know that we’re there for them.”
The things Best would change about her job were both large and small.
She said the courthouse could use another courtroom, and court staff should be paid more. She’d like to see if the old jail can be revamped for use, whether it’s through renting out the space or using it for a courtroom and county offices.
“It’s just such a beautiful building,” she said. “It would be pretty striking to have that as a modern office building on the inside … it’s a shame to let it just sit there.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Best said the courtroom chairs, especially in the jury boxes, could be upgraded. She said she’s concerned about an aging population having to sit in those seats and get in and out safely.
Best said she loves interacting with people and feeling like she makes a difference, large or small. Although she said being a judge is the best job she’s ever had, there is some serious struggle that goes with it.
When she comes out of the courtroom on a difficult case, Best said she sometimes wonders if she made the right calls. She said it keeps her up nights at times.
“It’s real easy from the bleachers, I think, to say, ‘This is what the call should’ve been,’ but there’s a lot of real lives involved in every single decision,” Best said. “… It’s still a human being trying to make hard decisions for other human beings.”
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