MADISON, Wis. (CN) - Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Walsh Bradley's chambers are more modest than one might expect for the most important judge in the state.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves tower over a short desk, accented with a few photos in simple frames. Across from her desk is a large window overlooking the Capitol lawn. On Wednesday, she relaxed back in her chair while recounting a career shaped by historic firsts and help from the neighborhood.

Bradley began her stint as chief justice of the state's high court on Thursday, having been elected by her peers to the job just two months before she retires in July. She says the justices are all dear friends, and that she honestly loves them.

"It is our privilege as a Court to be able to look to her leadership in this moment," said Justice Janet Protasiewicz in a statement. "I continue to appreciate her wise counsel, her collegiality, and her friendship every day, and I'm proud that she will have the opportunity to serve as chief to cap a long, distinguished career of service."

In 30 years, Bradley participated in 38,119 cases, heard 2,375 oral arguments and authored 592 opinions. 

Often described as "fiercely independent," she ran an apolitical campaign for the state Supreme Court and frequently goes her own way on written opinions. She wouldn't pick out individual, standout cases over the course of her career, but she did rally for the importance of precedent, transparency and stability as pillars of her approach to the job. 

"When it comes to precedent, to transparency in government, I don't care who joins me or if no one joins me," Bradley said seriously. "It is at the heart of our democracy."

In 2020, Bradley stood alone in her opinion of a pivotal case involving Marsy's Law, a constitutional amendment that gave victims of violence additional rights. She cast the only vote against the amendment, siding with a lower court that found its ballot description didn't inform voters that it also took rights away from defendants.

That case tested her commitment to her own pillars, but she remained steadfastly focused on what she views as her ultimate duty. The court was splintered by five different written opinions, but Bradley says that doesn't affect the court's goals. 

"We may differ in approaches, we may differ in ideology, but we are united in our commitment to serve the people in this state by doing the best we can," Bradley said, forcefully putting her hand down on the desk to punctuate her point. 

Her path toward the state's highest court was typical of any attorney. She attended law school at the University of Wisconsin in 1976 before becoming an attorney for Wausau Insurance Companies. In 1979, she went into private practice and then was appointed to the state Public Defender Board in 1983 before ultimately being appointed to a judgeship in Marathon County.

Bradley was the first female attorney to litigate a jury trial in five different counties in northern Wisconsin, once even entering the courtroom to see a female defense attorney, to her delight.

"When I came in June of '76, they didn't know what to do with me," Bradley said, thinking back to her time at the insurance company. "My supervisor on the first day said to me, trying to be reassuring, 'I want to tell you I have no problem with a woman trying to do a man's job.'"

In 1995, Bradley became the first woman to be elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, rather than appointed. What some might now call a trailblazing career, she sees as a calling that she happily followed.

Bradley and her husband, Mark, ran that first campaign together. She says there were no "political operatives" - just herself, a volunteer driver and her community working to get her elected.

Her Aunt Mildred went through the phone book and called every number in and around Richland Center, where Bradley grew up, to get the word out about the campaign. That's not all. Her private practice represented the Wausau police department, who called other departments across the state to sway their votes.

She ran against former Justice Neil Patrick Crooks, who she chastised repeatedly for attempting to polarize the race. Though Courthouse News could not locate financial disclosures from the contest, Bradley says that she broke the spending record with a whopping $170,000.

In contrast, the race to fill her seat on the bench in 2025 cost upward of $90 million and drew national attention for being highly polarized and controversial. The two races could not have been more different.

The most memorable drama in the 1995 campaign was the split support of former Governor Tommy Thompson and his wife, Sue Ann Thompson. He endorsed Crooks while she co-chaired Bradley's campaign, but there is apparently a rumor that the former governor himself voted for Bradley.

"Ann told [a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter] that she knows how he voted because it was absentee and she looked at his ballot," Bradley said with a wide smile. She says she cannot vouch for the truth of it, but that's what was said.

A friend with a small PR firm made her political ads, and he contracted an expert in California to come up with the campaign slogan. It cost $10,000, and when she heard it for the first time, she raced home to tell her husband: "I get into bed, I wake him up and tell him the slogan, and he just sat right up."

It was "We need Bradley badly," and it turns out that he had used the same slogan when he ran for student council president in high school. When their kids ran for student government, they reused it, too.

"Things were different back then," she said. "Money was different back then."

The Bradleys now split their time between a condo in Madison and their home on the Wisconsin River about two hours north in Wausau. It has big glass windows overlooking the river, which amplifies a cacophony of bird song. A path from the house leads down to the water, where they see wild turkeys roosting in the trees at night. Despite her schedule, she wakes for the sunrise every morning.

The pair has four kids, all now in their 40s, and six grandchildren. On Sunday mornings, the family gathers on a Zoom call at 11 a.m. sharp. It's a tradition that began during the Covid-19 lockdown, and everyone joins whether they are home or about.

Though Bradley does think that it may be time for new blood on the court, her age has little to do with why she chose not to run for reelection in 2025: "I want to take time to wonder at the world through which I wander. I have a curiosity of mind."

She looks forward to relinquishing some responsibility as cases become more polarizing and democracy itself is tested. Bradley says she will go on more bike rides with her husband, try mushroom foraging, learn how to identify birds by their call and invest more time in civic education across the state.

The chief justice is not blind to the polarization and political turmoil that the court will face in her absence. Oddly enough, it is an obituary of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist that eases her mind. The obituary referenced his final State of the Judiciary report, in which the Milwaukee native commented on attacks on the independent judiciary from political figures.

Without quite saying it, she compared that report to President Donald Trump's attack on district courts and his disobedience of court orders.

"Every generation has done it all again many times. That doesn't mean that I'm necessarily sanguine - there will come a tipping point, but we as a nation have survived many crossroads and crises, and however you would label what we are experiencing now, we've done it before. If the past is prologue, we'll survive it."

Source: Courthouse News Service