photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen, right, and Judge Sally Pokorny unveil Gottesburen's bench created for the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center to celebrate women in the legal profession, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

A special bench honoring the long history of women judges and attorneys in Douglas County will now sit outside the juvenile courtroom in the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

The colorfully inviting bench, titled “Pioneers of the Bench,” by Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen, was unveiled Thursday afternoon by Judge Sally Pokorny.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen, left, stands with the bench she created for the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center to celebrate women in the legal profession. At right, from the bench outward, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, are Martha Hodge Smith, Judge Sally Pokorny, Karen Ebmeier and Meryl Carver-Allmond, all members of the Douglas County Bar Association.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A crowd gathers for the unveiling of Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen’s bench at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center to celebrate women in the legal profession, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.

Pokorny said the bench — commissioned by the Douglas County Bar Association — was Gottesburen’s creation but was largely inspired by the idea that many things happen at the courthouse that are not “sad and bad” — things like weddings and adoptions.

“There are cases where we actually reunite families with their children,” Pokorny said Gottesburen was told as she pondered her creation. “There are good things that do happen here.”

“And we told her that we did want to celebrate women attorneys and the women judges who came before us,” Pokorny said, “and Langley took that information and created her very own vision.”

The bench, as Gottesburen explained to the crowd, features a female judge with a gavel seated beneath a classic courthouse pediment. A bow representing weddings — held aloft by two meadlowlarks, Kansas’ state bird — spans the bench above a representation of an adoptive family and a lacy collar often worn by judges with their robes. A cross bar beneath the seat features the words “Be Just, Merciful & Brave.”

“It’s just gorgeous,” Pokorny, a bird enthusiast, said, drawing special attention to the meadowlarks. “I look at it as my own personal bench for that reason.”

The bench sits just across the hall from the chambers of Pokorny and Judge Amy Hanley. Judge Stacey Donovan’s courtroom is nearby, as is Judge Catherine Theisen’s. The women account for four of the nine judges in the District Court, and Pokorny, Hanley and Donovan handle nearly all of the high-level criminal cases in the county.

A similar Van Go bench sits outside Donovan’s office, and more than one person in attendance Thursday said that the benches were a welcome relief from the courthouse’s largely tan and gray color scheme.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen’s bench at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center celebrates women in the legal profession.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The crossbar of Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen’s bench is pictured Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Judge Sally Pokorny sits on Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen’s bench at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. Gottesburen is at left, and Martha Hodge Smith, of the Douglas County Bar Association, is at right.