Longtime Pine County district judge Krista Martin hanging up her robes

When Krista Martin started at the University of Minnesota Duluth, she planned on majoring in Spanish with aspirations of teaching after graduation.

It was only by happenstance — and the freshman scrabble for electives to enroll in — that Martin was "funneled into" a class on constitutional law.

"I just loved it," Martin recalled in an interview on Monday. "I loved reading the law, I loved talking about it, I loved the way we thought about the words, and I all of a sudden went, 'I think I'm going to be a lawyer."

That change of heart — and major, to a dual focus on political science and communications — eventually led Martin to a career in law, including 24 years on the bench as a district judge in Pine County.

Martin is hanging up her judicial robes, with Oct. 6 as her official retirement date. On Monday, she joined WCMP for an interview to share a retrospective of her career.

'A calling to work with people who were less fortunate'

Martin was born the daughter of a Green Beret in Indiana — by her count, she moved schools 17 times between first grade and senior year of high school, where she graduated in Bolivar, Missouri.

She found herself in Minnesota when her mother, who was then divorced and looking for a place to land, was recommended the Gopher State by a friend from her military days.

"I love Minnesota, and I certainly consider it my home," Martin said.

Moving up north from Texas, Martin joked that adapting to the famously fickle Minnesota weather took some adjustment.

"When people said it was cold, we were like, 'okay,'" Martin laughed. "We didn't realize they meant in June."

Martin waitressed her way through law school at the University of Minnesota, and after her first year, did an unpaid internship with Legal Aid Service of Northeastern Minnesota in Duluth (now known as Justice North) to get her foot in the door.

She clerked for a law firm in Duluth after her second year, where she was offered a job. She spent a year in the position after her third year of law school, but felt like it wasn't the right fit.

"There was nothing wrong with the firm. I realized that, for me, it was just not fulfilling to do insurance defense work," Martin said. "And that what I really wanted to do was help primarily women and their children, having been a child of divorce and seeing what happened oftentimes to women who were then left impoverished, I felt very strongly that I had a calling to work with people who were less fortunate and were underprivileged and underserved."

Martin found a small ad in the newspaper for a lawyer position at Legal Aid, and left the firm to return to where she had previously interned.

"I did love it so much there," Martin said. "I really did. I worked there four years, I had great colleagues, very dedicated people. I really felt like I did good work for my clients, and that I made a difference."

'A need for service' in Pine County

At Legal Aid, Martin handled landlord-tenant work, divorces, orders for protection, and appeals of Social Security and public benefits.

As the newest attorney in the Duluth office, Martin was assigned to handle cases in Pine and Kanabec counties.

Her Pine County office was situated next to The Flower Box in downtown Pine City, which she staffed three days a week; she'd stay at a bed and breakfast in Hinckley.

"At that time, that would have been about 1991, things were tough here," Martin said. "I guess, more than loving the area, frankly, I just felt very much that there was a need for service here."

Since starting in Pine City, Martin said city and county officials have worked hard to make the area an attractive place to live and increase industry.

After having her son, Adam, Martin left Legal Aid to practice family law and take on a part-time contract to do public defender work.

"Primarily I did juvenile defense and child protection cases, but I also had some adult criminal defense clients and some private clients," Martin explained. "And then I did a lot of family law work."

When the Pine County bench position opened, Martin was 37 years old and had been practicing law for 11 years. She applied, and was appointed to the bench by former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura in 2001.

Martin began the first months of her appointment in Chisago County; as a public defender in Pine County, any conflicts on the calendar were cleared out before she started taking cases in Pine City in early 2002.

The appointment shifted Martin's commute ever-so-slightly: She went from practicing law every day at the 315 Main Street courthouse to moving into the judge's chambers there.

"I was on the bench in the old building for six years," Martin said.

Martin remembers the property, which was retrofitted to serve as a courthouse, not being an easy place to practice law.

"There were just a lot of things about it that just didn't work well in a modern justice system," Martin said. "It was a tough place to work."

Martin's chambers were relocated to the new county courthouse in 2007.

"It was a night and day difference," Martin recalled.

A trailblazer on the bench

When Martin was appointed to the bench, she was the first woman judge ever appointed in the 10th District assignment area of Pine, Isanti, Chisago, and Kanabec Counties.

"I'm really proud of maybe being brave enough to join a group of judges that were older and more experienced, and who were all men, and do that successfully," Martin said.

Martin was the only woman judge in the PICK area for 13 years.

"I think I did women proud, that's what I believe," Martin said. "I brought my own special skills and personality and work ethic to the bench, and I think my colleagues really appreciated me as an equal."

Martin also spearheaded the Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE) program in the PICK area in 2011, wherein the bench holds an initial case management conference early in the process when a divorce or custody case starts.

"We bring in the parties in an informal hearing, find out what the issues are, and then offer them an opportunity to do an Early Neutral Evaluation session with neutral evaluators with a pay scale set by the bench that's doable for most folks," Martin explained.

Martin said cases would often be resolved through ENE sessions, and the program remains part of proceedings. She served on both the state and district ENE committees during her tenure.

In 2014, Martin received a phone call from then-Minnesota Supreme Court chief justice Lorie Gildea, who invited her out for lunch.

"I had only met her a few times at conferences," Martin said. "I couldn't even believe she knew my name."

Gildea made the trek to Pine City, and over lunch at formerly Cabin Coffee's, asked Martin if she'd serve as one of her appointed at-large members to the Minnesota Judicial Council: the governing body of the state's judicial branch.

Martin remembers preparing for her first meeting with the judicial council, deliberating wardrobe choices in her closet and feeling intimidated.

"These are high-level, big thinkers, smart people, and I was like, 'I am Dorothy, the small and meek, from Pine County, Minnesota," Martin laughed.

Martin served six years on the Minnesota Judicial Council, in two three-year term installments, from 2014 to 2020.

"We made all policy and all of the high-level decisions for the judicial branch," Martin said. "I'm really proud of the work I did on that council; the people I served with, we made really hard decisions. The chief justice used to always say, 'we can do hard things.'"

Navigating the pandemic

Martin's term of office on the council ended in June of 2020, just months after the COVID-19 pandemic started in March.

The chief justice asked Martin to chair what was dubbed the "Other Side" work group, dedicated to solving challenges posed by unprecedented conditions.

"I chaired that committee with some unbelievably talented administrators from the state court administrator's office," Martin said.

The work group helped shepherd the judicial branch through transitioning to social distancing, Zoom hearings (and, initially, by phone), solving how to keep trials public, and setting standards for remote hearings and electronic exhibits.

"It took a while to get up and going, but we did manage to do that," Martin said.

Martin served on the work group for about a year before resigning.

"We're a small county, and when you're doing work like that, you end up taking time from the calendars and people fill in for you," she said. "And I felt like it was time for me to fill in for somebody else."

Tying the knot

In August of 2022, Martin did the wedding ceremony for her son and his wife, which got the judge thinking — how many nuptials had she officiated?

A late night spent counting marriage licenses in her office determined that her son's wedding was Martin's 689th; she estimates she's now well over 700.

"I love doing weddings," Martin said.

And no two look the same. Martin has officiated weddings on Halloween while sporting a witch's hat. She did a February wedding on Cross Lake, when it was ten below and the couple tied the knot on the frozen ice.

"Their guests were just darling about it," Martin said. "They all stayed in their cars, and then everyone rushed to their chairs and said, 'talk fast.'"

In the days before the prevalence of Bluetooth speakers, when couples wanted to have an outdoor ceremony, Martin would pull her car up and play music from the stereo.

"I did that several times," Martin said.

Martin's one and only time aboard a motorcycle was for a wedding at the Kettle River Shakedown, when everyone rode down the aisle on a Harley — including the officiant.

"I had a friend who took me out and practiced," she laughed.

Martin married one couple, signed their divorce papers, and performed the nuptials when they remarried.

"They were like, 'you undid it, now you've got to do it again,'" she laughed.

Most have taken place at the courthouse, but Martin has also officiated weddings at area parks — Sandstone, Robinson, Voyageur, you name it — and in residents' backyards. Big weddings, and ones where the couple didn't even bring witnesses, and court staff had to stand in.

"All it really takes are two people that love each other," Martin said. "You don't even need a ring."

Martin also recalled witnessing a vow renewal at the old Pine County Courthouse, for a couple that had eloped from Wisconsin fifty years prior.

"Of course, the courtrooms weren't courtrooms any more," Martin remembered.

When her niece gets married next year, Martin said she'll perform the ceremony.

'I just felt like it was time'

Martin said she can't quite put her finger on it, but felt like it was time for her to hang her robes up in retirement.

"I can't describe it, but you just know it's time," Martin said.

Part of it, she said, is the constant state of flux with the technology required for the job. AI in particular, she added, feels like a bridge too far.

"I've weathered every change, and I feel like I've been a champ," Martin laughed. "I go to the trainings, and I figure stuff out, and if I can't, I have my staff show me. I really feel like I've been good about not complaining, not moaning, just saying, 'okay, this is progress.'"

Another factor was the rigorous schedule required of district judges. Martin said she wanted to have more flexibility in her life, to open the door to more spontaneity.

"There's no part time, there's no slacking off, everybody works the same: Full board, every day, all day," Martin said.

There are parts of the job she won't miss: the volume. The trauma. The stress. The scrutiny. But Martin said, simply, she'll miss reading the law.

"That's what got me going to law school in the beginning, the purest sense of it," Martin said. "Just sitting down with a case and reading it, and thinking about it, and what does it mean, and analyzing the cases that interpret the Constitution."

Martin also said she'll miss her colleagues and court staff, as well as the human connection that comes with the job. Not only trying to be a positive force in people's lives, but being a listening ear for those who have been harmed.

"The one thing I'm really proud of is just sitting every day and listening to people's stories," she said. "And seeing them often at their worst, and really trying to make decisions without personal judgment, and without bias, and give people an explanation. And understand that they're not always going to agree with me, and people are not going to like me, and people are going to be mad at me, and just keep plugging forward and doing what you know is right."