QUINCY – Debra Wellborn’s decision to retire as associate judge in Adams County on July 2 means she will get her first name back.
“One of the things (retired judge) Diane Lagoski told me was, ‘When you first become a judge, remember you’re losing your first name,'” Wellborn recalled, smiling. “Everyone just says, ‘Hello, judge,’ and that was a little disconcerting — but it’s true.
“Now that I’m retiring, I’m getting my first name back. Just call me Deb. I’m really happy about that.”
Wellborn’s last day of work at the Adams County Courthouse was Friday, June 28. Josh Jones was appointed as her successor and his inauguration is scheduled for Friday, July 5. She was one of five Associate Judges serving the entire Eighth Judicial District, which includes Adams, Brown, Calhoun, Cass, Mason, Menard, Pike and Schuyler counties. She replaced Tom Ortbal and her first day of work was January 2, 2015.
She grew up in Macon, Missouri. Her father was an administrative judge in Missouri and her mother worked as a legal secretary for attorneys in Macon.
“At some point I thought, ‘I could probably do this,'” Wellborn said.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri in 1984 and her juris doctor from Washington University in St. Louis in 1986. After serving as a clerk for district judges in St. Louis and doing legal work in Edwardsville, Wellborn and her husband, former Adams County District Attorney Barney Bier, moved to Quincy in 1988.
“If you had told me on that trip to Quincy that it would turn out like this, I probably wouldn’t have believed it,” she said. “I had no agenda for the future. Let’s put it this way. It all just seemed to fit together and it seemed to work.”
Wellborn, who turns 62 later this year, worked in the Marion County, Missouri, district attorney’s office and had a private practice in Hannibal before taking a job as an assistant district attorney in the Adams County District Attorney’s Office under Scott Walden in the early 1990s. She moved into private practice and worked as a criminal defense attorney and part-time public defender for several years before joining the Illinois Attorney General’s Office in 1998.
“What I love about law school is the process of learning to be more open about your own thoughts and still being able to say, ‘This fits right here,'” she said. “I like things to fit in the pocket they’re supposed to fit in. I’m terrible at following rules.
“(As a judge, you should) always have an open ear. I think as a lawyer, I sometimes forget that the other side is allowed to argue. As a judge, it was like, ‘Wow, OK. Got it. I see you’ve really thought this through. I guess I need to think it through too.'”
Wellborn has handled all types of cases as a judge, most recently civil and traffic cases. She says her most rewarding work was the time she spent trying cases assigned to drug court.
“It’s really about watching the people who are in the system,” she said. “You don’t just see them from the perspective of ‘Here are your charges,’ but you actually get them to talk to you. You hear from the probation officer every week. These are the things that happened, even if they’re not drug-related. These are the family things that happened this week. These are the housing things, the job things, other things that happened. You get to know them a little bit better.
“I’d like to think I have compassion for everyone, but you can really have compassion for people (in drug court) and still tell them, ‘These are the rules.’ The only sad thing is when someone just can’t let go of their problem, whatever it is.”
For this reason, Wellborn admits that drug courts can also be difficult.
“Sometimes at the end of the day it’s hard to let go,” she said. “It’s not necessarily harder being in the courtroom, but it’s that transition to social time and things like that. I’m not going to miss knowing that things don’t always add up for people. Some of the things that happen, I’m really looking forward to not knowing everything.”
She will miss the people she sees every day in the courthouse.
“People knock on my door and I think to myself, ‘These people have known me since 1990,'” Wellborn said. “These are people I’ve known my entire adult life. It seems kind of odd to me that I’m not going to see some of these people in the hallway and ask them about their grandchildren.”
“A lot of people, what do they do in their private lives? They talk about work. Among the judges, we could talk about some of these things. But judges don’t have that many people to talk to. When we go out with friends, Barney’s tennis is an easy subject to talk about. Gardening is easy to talk about. But you pick and choose things and find them. You never really talk about city issues because it’s just not appropriate (for a judge) to talk about these things. You just have to keep quiet. Now it’s getting a little easier. Now I can say, ‘I’ve read about that too.’ It’s getting a little more relaxed.”
Wellborn is also looking forward to trying out social media in retirement.
“I never turned on social media,” she said, laughing. “When I went to judge school, the guy there said, ‘If you don’t have social media, don’t turn it on.’ People who know me know that I’m a very literal person. If you tell me that, then that’s the rule. I’m going to stick to it.
“I would love to know more about these social and family things. Recently I had to text a cousin and say, ‘I don’t have social media. Can you send me the picture we took?’ Years ago it might have been easier to say, ‘Don’t put this on and don’t do that.’ But now so much of what happens is on social media. I want to keep up with friends, family and people who say, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know about this.'”
When people search for her on social media, they search for her first name. Not “Judge.”
