The Michigan Supreme Court counts on Judge Susan L. Dobrich to teach her colleagues, as evidenced by a glossy two-page feature in “Judiciary Success Stories — How Michigan Judges are Driving Change.”

“The team you have here in Cass County is first-rate, the best I’m aware of,” said Justice Bridget McCormack to attendees of the Cass County Youth Council’s eighth annual luncheon April 27 at Southwestern Michigan College.

McCormack joined the court in 2013. She was a University of Michigan Law School professor since 1998 prior to her November 2012 election.

After crunching five years of data, “We average 7,000 new filings a year, each representing a family experiencing intense turmoil, complicated heartache and no immediate answers,” she said. “I know from my own experience as a mom, lawyer and judge that parenting is incredibly hard work, like being CEO of a small business even without curve balls life throws like mental health or addiction issues, medical conditions, job loss, unstable housing or poor education. Struggles some families endure can be overwhelming.”

About 25 percent of cases are disposed of by dismissal or withdrawn petitions.

“I will never suggest the system is perfect,” McCormack said, “but it’s not set up to make parents fail, like some think. It’s notable 25 percent of cases are resolved in parents’ favor.”

Of the rest, 3 percent transfer to other courts, 56 percent end in admissions, with but a small percent reaching trial.

Presiding over Cass County’s 43rd Circuit, Probate, Family Treatment and District courts, Dobrich “is a statistical outlier,” McCormack said. “She and her team have a 62-percent success rate reunifying families through treatment court. Your community is killing it! In the past five years, Judge Dobrich has been appealed twice. Each was dismissed, which is amazing. I’ve been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court more than that.”

SMC First Lady Sarah Mathews, Youth Council president and an assistant prosecutor, presented Dobrich with the first Flame Keeper Award for “significantly impacting children and families and being committed to bringing a healthy future to all children, advocating on their behalf, contributing to fanning the flame of keeping our community dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect” and “inspiring others to follow in their footsteps so the light shined will never burn out.”

Child abuse costs the country $124 billion annually — $1,400 per family.

“In 2016, 27 percent of 90,356 investigations in Michigan resulted in evidence of abuse or neglect,” Mathews said. “There were 37,242 victims — 39 percent under age 4. A study found child abuse in Michigan costs $1,827,694,855 without emotional costs that trickle down.”

Dobrich, president of the Michigan Association of Treatment Court Professionals, past president of the Michigan Probate Judges Association and the first woman to serve as county prosecutor in 1983, joined the bench in 1995.

The Edwardsburg native and Dowagiac resident started Family Treatment Court in 2003. Govs. John Engler and Jennifer Granholm both appointed her to the Task Force on Child Neglect and Abuse.

She was CASA Family Court Judge of the Year in 2015.

“Kindness helps,” said Dobrich, a Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Kalamazoo College graduate. “It’s not always what you do on a case. It’s how you do it. If individuals feel they had a fair chance, they generally don’t appeal.”

“This is why, at the Michigan Supreme Court, we ask Judge Dobrich to help train our new judges,” McCormack said.

Her sister is actress Mary McCormack.

“My sister is not that big a deal. She brought peace to the Middle East — on TV,” she joked.