The last time the federal government shut down, many employees needed to halt their work until Congress and the White House resolved the funding dispute.

For Susan Prose, a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the time, it was reportedly her “personal hell.”

Kevin Traskos, a supervisor in the office, said after a few weeks he heard from Prose’s husband, Kent.

“His plea: You have to find a way to get Susan back to work,” Traskos recalled on Friday. “And I remain convinced that somehow, Kent was behind a congressional deal a few weeks later.”

In May, Prose began work as a magistrate judge on Colorado’s federal trial court. Last week, she held her ceremonial swearing-in, known as an investiture, at the Alfred A. Arraj Courthouse in downtown Denver. Unlike district judges, who the president appoints and the U.S. Senate confirms for life, magistrate judges are screened by a selection panel, hired by the district judges and serve for eight-year terms.

“Judge Prose, through her work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, was very familiar to us on the court,” said Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer. “I will say that having an attorney be familiar to the judges – sometimes familiarity can breed contempt. But let me assure you that with Susan Prose, that was not the case.”

Prose grew up in Kansas where her father, Virgil W. Begesse, was an injured World War II veteran who became a probate judge despite not having a law degree.

“In all of his years as a judge, I never heard a negative comment about Virgil from any lawyer appearing before him,” said Prose.

She began playing classical piano, and her musical skills took her to Benedictine College. Prose met her future husband at Benedictine, but the two were apart during graduate school, with Prose going to Yale Law.

They married and moved to Colorado, where Susan Prose became a lawyer in private practice and Kent Prose was an investigator in Denver.

“By day, Susan worked a fancy 17th Street style of law, while by night I worked a Colfax Ave. style of law in bars and motels and alleyways,” Kent Prose described.

Susan Prose joined the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office, where she was involved in the county’s response to the Columbine High School massacre. In particular, Prose represented the county in a lawsuit from The Denver Post seeking recordings made by the teenage shooters. She then began working at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, defending the federal government from lawsuits – including the civil rights claims of incarcerated people.

“What Susan did was different,” said Traskos, her former colleague. “She’d drive for hours down there (to the prison), sit beside them, talk about their cases and their claims, and also talked about their lives. Over time, they came to trust Susan.”

In December, the court announced Prose would succeed Nina Y. Wang, the first magistrate judge in Colorado to become a district judge. While magistrate judges tend to focus more on administrative and preliminary matters, they perform most of the same functions as the district judges, including handling civil cases on their own.

Prose recently heard a request from a plaintiff to recuse herself from a case because of her prior government work. The plaintiff, who is asserting civil rights and whistleblower claims against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued Prose’s prior defense of the federal government against similar allegations “can and does create the appearance of judicial bias, partiality and impropriety.”

Reading the case law and concluding she had no obligation to recuse, her “prior job title” did not compromise her impartiality, Prose responded.

Prose offered compliments, both abstract and concrete, to each of the other magistrate judges on the court. Michael E. Hegarty has an “uncanny ability to negotiate just and fair settlements,” Prose said, because he “understands that what we see on the surface is just a sliver of the depths of a human being.”

Scott T. Varholak is capable of “smart, insightful legal writing and (an) ability to manage a courtroom in a way that is both efficient and wise,” said Prose. S. Kato Crews has a “high intellect and unfailing grace,” with a “well-ordered soul that has been spoken of by the great philosophers and theologians.”

N. Reid Neureiter, continued Prose, has “sensitivity and care for all who appear in his court.” Maritza Dominguez Braswell of Colorado Springs possesses “intellectual vibrancy.” James M. Candelaria of Durango was the only person Prose said she does not know well, but “your reputation precedes you.”

Attendees heard about Prose’s habit of working long hours. Traskos likened her to “an Energizer Bunny.” He also disclosed Prose knows a “weird amount about Civil War battles.”

“I feel sure that if you can travel back in time to that little Kansas town where Susan was growing up and talk to the people there,” Traskos said, “and told them that someday Virg’s daughter would grow up to be a judge, they’d say, ‘That sounds about right.'”

In attendance at the Denver courthouse were all of the active district judges; Judge Allison H. Eid of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit; Colorado Court of Appeals Judges Terry Fox, Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov and Karl L. Schock; Denver District Court Judge Kandace C. Gerdes; U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan; and Federal Public Defender Virginia L. Grady.

Afterward, there was a reception at the 10th Circuit’s courthouse, which Prose paid for herself.