Judge Bailey Reflects on Career

Former Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Suzanne Bailey is enjoying retirement after 30 years on the bench. In an editorial in the Hamilton County Herald this week she reflects back on her career. A 1975 graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law, Bailey began working with juveniles on one of her very first cases. She was so touched by the experience, she asked to be placed on the appointment list at juvenile court. “I enjoyed taking appointments there. We didn’t get paid...but my heart attached to juvenile court and the children who came through there,” she says. Bailey went on to become the first woman elected to any judgeship in the county when she became juvenile judge in 1982. Bailey, who retired in April, says her only advice to successor Judge Rob Philyaw is simple: “Have the heart of a servant.”