Barger and Grant face off in Justice of the Peace election: Audrey Barger

The Hill County justice of the peace said she is running for a third term because if someone can help other people, they should.

"The reason I want to do it is because I feel that I make a difference," she said.

Barger faces Bruce Grant in the nonpartisan race for the seat.

Barger, who said she was born in Malta in 1961 and then moved with her family to Polson, didn't think her life would take her this direction while she was growing up.

"I never dreamed I would be a judge," she said.

She came to school at Northern Montana College, now Montana State University-Northern, where she earned a bachelor's degree in business technology with a minor in communications, and that was where she connected with the legal profession.

Barger said she received an internship with a Havre law office, Morrison, Ettien, Barron and Young.

"That's where I fell in love with the law," she said.

When she graduated the office invited her to come work for them full time. Van Barron left that office and she went to work for him as a paralegal and legal assistant, Barger said.

She then left that field for a time, working in real estate, but came back to law when she went to work for the Hill County Attorney's Office, she said.

She then became a Hill County deputy clerk of court, where she did work for the office including taking minutes in state District Court. Barger held that position until she ran for justice of the peace.

She said she decided to run for that office in 2010 when she heard the incumbent, Terry Stoppa, had decided not to run for re-election.

She won the election, and took over early when Stoppa retired in November 2010.

Barger said she wanted to run because she thought the background and training she had fit.

"That position needed somebody in it that was competent and that was concerned about following the law and could help them get through the processes they needed to get through. I knew there were a lot of things I could do in the court to make things better for people who came before me, faster quicker. I had a lot of ideas, a lot of things I wanted to accomplish. And I've done a lot of them."

Since she took office she has presided over more than 21,000 cases, she said.

Barger said one of the things she is most proud of as justice of the peace is Hill County Justice Court becoming a court of record in 2012.

Before it became a court of record, anyone who appealed results of trials from justice court received a new trial in District Court.

"The case starts all over again, and it was frustrating to me because I didn't know what I did wrong or if I did anything wrong," Barger said, adding that the only way to get better is to know what was wrong.

"Becoming a court of record is huge. It's a huge savings for the taxpayers, and ... when jurors sit in a case in my courtroom, it validates what they're doing for a whole day" she said.

She said before it was a court of record, attorneys might be filing for an appeal almost before the verdict came back.

"It's a huge cost," she said. "And it raises the bar" because attorneys won't have a second chance.

Barger said the other change she is most proud of is her working to establish, and preside over, the local drug and DUI treatment courts.

She said she saw cases while working in attorney's offices and in the clerk of court's office where people would come in for offenses and they had young children. Then those young children would end up in juvenile court, then in District Court, and she might see their children go through the same process.

"There was just no way for them to get out," she said.

She said she doesn't like to talk about the treatment courts themselves much.

"I always like the focus to be on the participants, and they are amazing," she said. "We have graduated 64 participants."

She said she doesn't get any pay for the extry 10 to 15 hours what she does working with the team that comprises the treatment court, but it is worth it.

"If I can save one person, and I think I have probably saved at least one, it impacts not just them but their families and their children. It gives their children structure, a safe, secure place to be.

It gets them off of public assistance, they become able support themselves, support their children, provide housing for their children keep their children warm, read them a story at night, ... I'm very passionate about it."

The savings to the state are also immense, she said, with the court taking the place of about $60-a-day in the county jail or $100-a-day in the state prison.

And people in the program know the difference, she added.

"I had one person who graduated the other day, and she said to me, 'Thank you your honor, for not sending me to prison,'" Barger said.