Sign In
  • InsideTrack
  • September 16, 2015

    A Career of Firsts: U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb Receives Prestigious Lifetime Service Award

    Judge Barbara Crabb says her work “stretches the brain.” Later this month, she will receive the Wisconsin Law Foundation Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award for a lifetime of service to the profession and the community.

    Shannon Green

    Barbara Crabb

    U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb is the 2015 recipient of the Wisconsin Law Foundation Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award. Judge Crabb was appointed to the Western District of Wisconsin in 1979.

    Sept. 16, 2015 – At 76, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb shows no signs of slowing down; the work is still fun for her. She’s the third generation in her family to choose law as a profession, and has a career filled with firsts.

    And according to those who know her, many of those who work with her view her with a respect that verges on awe.

    Judge Crabb is the 2015 recipient of the Wisconsin Law Foundation Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award.

    The award is given for a lifetime of service to the profession and the community, and will be presented at the 2015 Fellows of the Wisconsin Law Foundation Annual Recognition Dinner in Madison on Sept. 30.

    “It’s a huge honor,” Judge Crabb said.

    A Career of Firsts

    Judge Crabb chose U.W. Madison for her college and graduate degrees on her mother’s recommendation, and became a lawyer like her grandfather, father, and uncle.

    Finishing up with U.W. Law School in 1962, she was the only woman in the group of about six to graduate midyear. At the graduation ceremony, held in the Wisconsin Memorial Union Theater, she was the only student – man or woman – to attend.

    “So here’s the dean, who was (very traditional), and when they said ‘Here is the graduating class of the U.W. Law School,’ and just one woman stood up …,” Judge Crabb laughs at the memory.

    After law school, she worked for a Madison firm for a few years before her husband’s job took them to Milwaukee. When they returned to Madison in 1968, she worked part time at the U.W. Law School as a research assistant on various projects.

    Then, seeking a lawyer working part time, U.S. District Judge James E. Doyle hired her as a U.S. magistrate in 1971. In that position – the position later became full time – she learned how to be a judge, handling initial appearances, preliminary hearings, an occasional trial, and so on. It was an experience she found she enjoyed.

    She applied, and was appointed to the Western District of Wisconsin in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. That was a time when few women and minorities served as judges or other leadership positions.

    “He was the one that really opened up the opportunities for women and minorities in the federal courts,” she said of President Carter.

    She was the first woman appointed to the court in the circuit that included Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. The other judges “really, really went out of their way to be welcoming.”

    “It was kind of fun to be the first, but that’s pretty irrelevant as far as getting the work done,” Judge Crabb said.

    She became chief judge from 1980 to 1996, and again in 2001 to 2010. As senior U.S. district judge – she took senior status in 2009 – she now works with a lesser caseload, although her caseload had continued at the full-time level until last year, when U.S. District Judge James Peterson was sworn in.

    She continues because it is work she loves. Being a judge, she said is the “biggest privilege anyone could ever have.”

    Each day brings an intellectual challenge always satisfying and interesting.

    “It stretches your brain more than sometimes you think it’s capable of,” Judge Crabb said.

    It is also a position that opens a window into people’s lives – unfortunately, not always during the good moments. Such a position carries a burden of responsibility.

    Doyle’s Legacy

    Judge Doyle became more than a role model for Judge Crabb – he was her mentor.  She worked with him until his death in 1987; he had served in the position since 1965. Judge Doyle – father of former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle – had one of the heaviest caseloads in the country.

    He was an amazing man who taught her much about courts and being a judge. He was a craftsman of the law, she said, who worked tirelessly to ensure the Constitution applied to everyone in society.

    It was important to him, she said, that “we make sure everyone in society is getting heard, and getting careful consideration of their claims to participate in our society.”

    “He had this way of analyzing things that was just remarkable,” and was a man devoted to his job and to those who appeared before him, she said.

    A Mentor, an Inspiration

    Judge Crabb has mentored more than 65 law clerks who worked for her over the years, many going on to very successful careers in law.

    “She is universally regarded by lawyers with a respect that verges on awe,” Judge Peterson said.

    Cecelia Klingele, assistant professor of law at U.W. Law School, served as a clerk with Judge Crabb while a young lawyer, “an experience I was honored to have,” Klingele said in her nominating letter.

    She inspired us with fervent longing to be better lawyers and better people. … Her example makes me strive to be a more thoughtful human being. Cecelia Klingele, assistant professor of law at U.W. Law School and a former law clerk for Crabb

    Judge Crabb was “both warm and keenly demanding,” with that “nearly legendary” work ethic, Klingele said. And she taught Klingele her core values: treating litigants with dignity, working diligently in the service of the country, issuing carefully crafted, well-researched and timely opinions, and always being humble in what she did.

    “It was clear that she saw her job as one of service to the people of her district,” Klingele said. “She inspired us with fervent longing to be better lawyers and better people. … Her example makes me strive to be a more thoughtful human being.”

    Treaties, Prayer, Marriage, and Community Service

    Judge Crabb is known for her high-profile decisions – the latest on same-sex marriage in Wisconsin – and on Wisconsin Native American treaty rights involving land use, hunting, spearfishing, and casino gambling, and on the National Day of Prayer.

    Judge Crabb inherited the treaty cases from Judge Doyle who became involved in 1973; she took over the cases in 1987, continuing actively through the mid-1990s.

    “There were so many issues that arose. We had to have separate trials on different species, and decide what the Indians were entitled to,” Judge Crabb said.

    She is universally regarded by lawyers with a respect that verges on awe. U.S. District Judge James Peterson

    The resolution on the issues is a compliment to the state, the people of northern Wisconsin, and to the Native Americans involved, she said. Having witnessed its inception, she is happy to see the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission grow from a small organization to a leader in conservation and treaty rights in Wisconsin.

    But she hopes her legacy will be more than these high-profile decisions.

    “I’d like to see the whole thing, everything I did, because it’s been such a privilege to work on so many things, so much variety,” Judge Crabb said.

    Her colleague, Judge Peterson, said he believes her most important contribution comprises the “many thousands of ordinary cases that have gotten thoughtful, thorough consideration, without the public or the press even noticing.”

    Judge Crabb for nine years worked as a volunteer with United Way, serving on its board of directors and chairing a committee. While she no longer serves on the board, the experience, she said, was terrific.

    “They’re so tuned in to which organizations around the community are really working well, and putting their efforts into the right kinds of programs,” Judge Crabb said.

    Unwavering Commitment

    Terms used to describe Judge Crabb include “a firepower,” “unfailingly kind, gracious, friendly and encouraging,” “a great listener and a committed mentor” with an outstanding and “unwavering commitment to the court and the public.”

    Judge Crabb handles her cases with a “strong commitment to fairness, to the rule of law, and to the firm conviction that she must decide as the law requires, regardless of the expediency or popularity of those decisions,” said Margaret Raymond, dean and professor of law at the U.W. Law School, in a letter of nomination.

    She is a judge who maintains the highest standard of scholarly, thoughtful decision-making, while also making the court among the fastest from filing to final disposition year after year, according to her colleague, U.S. District Judge William Conley.

    “There would seem to me few, if any, among the State Bar of Wisconsin who have given such lengthy, untiring, and dedicated service to our state’s bench, bar, and public than she,” Judge Conley said.

    I’m doing everything I want to do right now. Judge Crabb

    “She brings her full talent and devotion to every case, large or small,” Judge Peterson said. It is a lesson she learned from her predecessors, he said. “There are no cases that we may slough off as insignificant, no matter who brings them.”

    “I cannot imagine a lifetime of achievement more deserving of the Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award than that of Judge Barbara B. Crabb,” Judge Peterson said.

    Judge Crabb “has embodied throughout her law career the qualities of tireless work ethic, humility, and painstaking craftsmanship that all of us aspire to attain in our profession. She continues to do this as a senior judge, and is a public servant in its most honorable sense,” said Cheryl Furstace Daniels, vice president of the Wisconsin Law Foundation and chair of the award committee.

    For Daniels, it is an honor to serve in the profession with Judge Crabb, she said. And it is an honor for the State Bar’s Wisconsin Law Foundation to give Judge Crabb its most prestigious award for her lifetime service to the profession.

    ‘I Wouldn’t Change’

    She thinks most lawyers are amazing, exceptional people working in a tough profession.

    It is more difficult to be a lawyer now, Judge Crabb said. “Most of them are working so hard and doing so much, not only for their clients but for the community as well.”

    Her experiences have convinced her she chose the right career path.

    “Oh, I wouldn’t change,” Judge Crabb said.

    She receives a lot of support from her husband, Ted Crabb, who retired in 2001 after working since 1968 as the director of the Wisconsin Union in Madison.

    “I have the nicest husband in the world, and the most supportive,” Judge Crabb said.

    She enjoys reading, tennis, and birdwatching, and loves the garden her husband tends during the summer.

    “I’m doing everything I want to do right now,” she said.


Join the conversation! Log in to comment.

News & Pubs Search

-
Format: MM/DD/YYYY