What is your current role and what are your main responsibilities? I am now a retired Connecticut Superior Court judge and my current roles are providing formal and informal legal support for several nonprofit organizations including several Serbian Orthodox entities at the diocesan and parish level. I am a Trustee Board member of Sts. Cyril & Methodius Serbian Orthodox Mission Church of Connecticut; Board member of Orthodox Christian Attorney Association; and Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation. As a fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation (part of the Connecticut Bar Association), I provide legal support in legal education for the middle school and high schools in the State of Connecticut through the annual mock trial competition and through the annual Connecticut Essay Program for CT high schools. My roles are to act as a judicial coach and judge for the area schools as the students learn the art of handling civil and criminal jury trials. What three words would you use to describe yourself?    Very organized; passionate; and very very Serbian Please share a brief overview of your career path and how you got to where you are today. My career path followed two separate journeys in the past  forty three (43) years of admission to the practice of law as a civil trial litigator and as a judicial officer. In 1981, I started as a judicial law clerk for the State of Connecticut with a two year appointment serving the Connecticut trial judges for all legal research and writing needs. From that start, I launched into a thirty plus year career as an insurance defense litigator with the Travelers Insurance Company, where I started as a baby trial counsel and worked my way to Managing Counsel, Regional Counsel for Subrogation nationally, and ultimately as Associate Group General Counsel supporting the Travelers specialty businesses including trucking industry, entertainment industry and other specialty businesses. While at Travelers, I managed two large field law offices in New Haven, Connecticut and in Brookfield, Wisconsin. I tried over 25 jury cases to verdict and handled thousands of depositions, arbitrations, court trials and the like.  My journey shifted when I retired from Travelers in 2015 and dedicated myself to public service when I was honored to be nominated by the Governor of the State of Connecticut in 2018 for the Superior Court bench. While on the bench from 2018 to 2022, I primarily handled the civil docket for the Meriden CT Judicial District, where I supervised the entire civil cases including all jury trials, court trials, housing, civil protective order and foreclosure dockets. As a judicial officer, I authored over 300 written judicial decisions in a variety of civil areas and to this day, many of my fellow current judges continue to recite my decisions as precedent. That is very humbling! Today, after judicial retirement, I continue dabbling in the law but in a nonprofit pro bono setting as legal advisor and counselor for a variety of nonprofit religious and nonreligious organizations. What inspired you to pursue a career in law? My legal career was inspired by my undergraduate degree in journalism and by my work as a newspaper reporter before law school. I had many journalism and communication law classes as an undergraduate at Marquette University and Western Connecticut State University so my interest in law began in those early classes covering libel and defamation areas. What are some of the most notable achievements in your career? I have been very blessed to receive notable recognition by the Connecticut bar for my work as a lawyer in Connecticut and by Travelers Insurance Legal Services.  The Connecticut Bar Association bestowed me with the 2014 Ladder Award in which the association recognized female lawyers/judges who had shown extra support for other developing younger attorneys. The Ladder Award honors a Connecticut woman attorney who has “left the ladder down” for women to follow in her footsteps, and values the importance of leadership development, mentoring, and supporting junior lawyers in their journeys to success. At the award dinner, over 100 of my colleagues attended and showed wonderful recognition for the work that I had done in hiring, developing and mentoring my female sisters in the law.  And while at Travelers, in 2008, the Travelers Legal Department comprised of over 1,000 in house lawyers recognized myself and my field litigation office in New Haven Connecticut with its annual General Counsel’s Award for Excellence in Client Service. This was a great honor showcasing the feedback that my New Haven Office comprised of 25 lawyers and a staff of 50 persons had achieved in handling thousands of civil insurance litigation and workers compensation matters for Travelers.    What do you find most rewarding about your work?  My most rewarding aspects of judicial work is in making sure all litigants and parties feel that they have been listened to and treated objectively and fairly - even if I have ruled against them. As a judge, I hope my legacy has been treating everyone with dignity and respect. What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given? The best advice given to me was from my first Managing Attorney as I started my litigation career. He taught me that every client counted - whether individual or corporate or big biz or small mom and pop.  And if I were to make sure to focus on what my client desired, my success and satisfaction as an attorney would prove positive. Those words back in 1984 rang true through my entire litigation career and into my judicial experience as well. How do you balance your professional and personal life?   Not well. So life as a litigator makes this a very challenging questions, because court schedules and deadlines dictate your life as a litigator, so work life balance is a constant challenge. My approach was to plan my schedule out well in advance, often asking trial judges for vacation time one or two years in advance, so all parties were warned that I need time off for myself and for my family. I think taking ownership of your own time becomes critical in this balance. Please share a fun or interesting fact about yourself that not many people know.    I am not sure how secret this is but I have been a giant Chicago Cubs fan since growing up in Waukegan, Illinois in north side territory. Anyone who has  visited my judicial chambers or my law office through the years experienced a ton of Cubs memorabilia - and being in a state like Connecticut without a professional baseball team - became quite the conversation piece.  What do you hope to get out of the Serbian Attorney Association?  I hope to get to network with many of our Serbian attorneys throughout the United States and to help mentor/inspire them in their legal careers. Selfishly, I also hope to encourage more Serbian lawyers to consider judicial roles as part of their career development plans. We need more judges with Serbian backgrounds so that our community is represented in this very important public servant role.