Michigan’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack doesn’t stand on ceremony.

She was listening to oral arguments in court Thursday morning then, during the lunch hour, she ran over to the Radisson Hotel Lansing at the Capitol for an impromptu interview in front of a Michigan Press Association audience.

Record-Eagle Publisher Paul Heidbreder, president of the MPA Board of Directors, welcomed McCormack to the stage where she joined Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor Brian Dickerson for a candid Q&A that was both illuminating and disarming.

What she can’t talk about, she didn’t. But what McCormack, 56, could discuss covered the gamut from ballot initiatives to redistricting to the election of judges.

She will be stepping down from the bench at the end of the year.

But, Dickerson asked, if there was an opportunity for a federal appointment, would she consider it?

“No,” she said. “I am not interested.”

McCormack was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court in fall 2012. “Ten years is enough,” she said.

Some of the cases coming before the court in that time have been high-profile, if not historic; cases, for example, that pertained to the voting rights and reproductive rights proposals on the Nov. 8 ballot. In those matters, the court was called upon to intercede and it did definitively, ordering state officials to do their jobs.

It’s a rare occurrence for the court to issue a writ of mandamus.

“It does feel like a sign of the times,” McCormack said. “The court is being pulled into disputes that it has never been pulled into before … to play a much bigger role than any of us wish we had to play.”

The state has been fortunate to have this competent jurist at the helm. She has been chief justice since 2019, a particularly turbulent time when the system had to navigate the pandemic, when courts were closed and cases had to be handled via videoconferencing.

McCormack was a Democratic party nominee, yet it was one of her Republican colleagues who called her “a voice of reason, compassion and thoughtfulness.”

“Politics is creeping into courts in a significant way,” McCormack noted, “but I don’t think that means your justices are going to deliver a partisan outcome.”

When she looks back on accomplishments, she mentions the establishment of the Justice For All Commission, which she described as the most innovative commission in the nation working on how to help people with legal problems who can’t afford to hire lawyers.

Another important development is a statewide case management system.

“Right now, I can’t tell you how many juveniles are in detention as a result of court cases in Michigan. That’s crazy,” she said. “How can we make good policy decisions if we don’t know … what’s happening in our courts?”

The urgent need for case management was noted, too, in the Record-Eagle’s “Kids In Crisis” juvenile justice series; the final part of the series appears in this edition.

A statewide case management system has been approved for funding by the Legislature and the governor, so it will be implemented — and that’s good for the people of Michigan, she said.

Dickerson mentioned that McCormack recently lost her father, who died of bladder cancer. “My Dad was awesome,” she said. “He entered the Marine Corps at 17. … He was a unique guy who cared about service. He volunteered for Hospice and was instrumental in raising enough money to build a center. He died in that center.”

Her next chapter will be as the chief executive officer of the American Arbitration Association, a nonprofit that, according to McCormack, is the biggest provider of alternative dispute resolution services in the nation.

Michigan’s chief justice doesn’t stand on ceremony — and she won’t be resting on her laurels either.

— Traverse City Record-Eagle