by Mindy Aguon

Guam - After more than three decades of service to the people of Guam, Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson is ready to enjoy retirement and get to her bucket list.

But the judge isn't ready to put down the gavel just yet as she feels she has much more service left to give to the people of Guam.

To call Her Honor an overachiever would be an understatement. "I'm so lucky to have one of seven jobs in the last fourteen years," she told KUAM News. For more than three decades, she has dedicated her life to government service and the people of Guam.

From a law clerk fresh out of law school, Barrett-Anderson put in countless hours of hard work as the Department of Education legal counsel. She was then appointed the island's first female attorney general. Where she placed an emphasis on the Child Support Enforcement Division, met the needs of abused children and addressed the growing juvenile problem.

Wanting to make more of a difference, Barrett-Anderson served as a two-term senator until she was appointed to the Superior Court bench. April 14 of this year will mark fourteen official years as a judge and she carries with her countless memories of her time on the bench. "I don't have a most memorable moment but I do have this feeling of some of the cases that are the saddest to me where you have marriages-the longest one I believe was thirty-six ears broke up and the happiest are when I marry somebody and they're giggling," she added. "The hardest part of the job is sentencing someone to a long-term confinement and when I see their families and children there that's tough."

While Friday marked her last day on the job, she'll still be seen in the courthouse as she finishes out her caseload and the numerous projects she helped build at the court. "The Juvenile Drug Court project is so dear and close to my heart, from there I went onto the Family Violence Project; that's a tough one to deal with everyday and then I raised by hand for the DUI Court project, because I think it helps so many people in Guam to get them into a therapeutic atmosphere and get them accountable for their DUI and don't do it again," she said.

If she hadn't gotten into law, Barrett-Anderson says she would have taken her lifelong passion for drawing and been an architect. In a way she's managed to fulfill that dream-building and designing a legacy at the court and becoming an architect of law and the legal process.