Retired Montana Chief Justice receives top award from national court nonprofit

Karla M. Gray recognized for ‘commitment to highest ideals of the justice system’

“Throughout her nearly 18 years of service to Montana’s highest court, and particularly during her eight years at its helm, Chief Justice Gray championed equal access to justice for all Montanans and spurred the legal community to pro bono service,” said Mary C. McQueen, NCSC president. “Her character, commitment to the highest ideals of the justice system, and hands-on approach to effecting change set an example for judges not just in Montana, but throughout the country.”

Utah Chief Justice Christine M. Durham, who also is chair of NCSC’s Board of Directors, will present the award to Chief Justice Gray on Wednesday, July 28, during the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators Annual Meeting in Vail, Colo.

Chief Justice Gray retired from the Montana Supreme Court in December 2008. Following her 1991 appointment by then-Gov. Stan Stephens to the court as an associate justice, she went on to become the first woman elected to the Montana Supreme Court in 1992 as well as the first woman elected Chief Justice in 2000. Under her leadership, Montana’s court system underwent a sweeping restructuring in 2001-02 that placed all of the state’s trial courts under state funding, allowing the system to run more efficiently. Recognizing the relationship between judicial independence and accountability, Chief Justice Gray also implemented the use of CourTools, NCSC’s nationally acclaimed set of court performance measures, in Montana’s Supreme Court, and was instrumental in developing CourTools for appellate courts across the nation.

Chief Justice Gray is dedicated to the cause of equal access to justice and worked diligently to support the Montana Supreme Court’s Equal Justice Task Force, which conducted the first comprehensive legal-needs study in the state’s history, and the Supreme Court Commission on Self-Represented Litigants, which helped prepare litigants to represent themselves in court.

In the decade prior to ascending to the bench, Chief Justice Gray was in-house counsel for Atlantic Richfield Co., ran a solo practice, and served as a staff attorney and lobbyist for the Montana Power Co. She also worked as a lobbyist at the Montana Legislature for the Montana Trial Lawyers Association. Chief Justice Gray began her legal career in 1976 when she moved from California to Butte, Mont., to clerk for Senior U.S. District Court Judge W.D. Murray.