North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls still believes in the importance of informing the public about the judiciary, but these days she's a little more careful about what she says. 

She's been subject to two misconduct investigations for speaking out about court policies to news outlets — including Law360 — during her five-year tenure on the bench.

In an interview with Law360 last year, she criticized the court for abandoning diversity and inclusion efforts, including its own Commission on Fairness and Equity, as well as an initiative that offered racial equity training to the state's judges. She discussed the ways women lawyers and attorneys of color are often disrespected in the courtroom, and her own experience of being interrupted by colleagues and attorneys as a female jurist, the court's sole Black justice and one of only two Democrats elected to the bench. 

In response to the interview, the state's Judicial Standards Commission launched an investigation into whether Justice Earls' remarks violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. It was the second such complaint brought against the jurist, who was also investigated by the commission for public comments about changes to the court's citation and precedent policies as well as a possible change to state laws governing the right appeal. She filed a federal lawsuit claiming these inquiries stifled her First Amendment rights.

On this month's episode of Approach The Bench, Justice Earls spoke about the lasting impact of her disciplinary saga, her experience of being in the court's ideological and demographic minority, and her perspective on elections as both an advocate and now as a candidate.